A Summer at Green Gables
by VickyP16
Summary: "Two months of Green Gables and dew-wet, spicy ferns ankle-deep along the brook and lazy, dappling shadows in Lover's Lane and wild strawberries in Mr. Bell's pasture and the dark loveliness of firs in the Haunted Wood!" Anne and Gilbert's first summer as an engaged couple merits only a sentence in AoWP (ch.17). Here's how those two unrecorded months may have panned out.
1. The way of all Flesh

**1\. The way of all Flesh**

The two ladies of robust, but advancing, years sat on the porch, peering into the distance, where they could just make out the shape of two distant figures, walking hand in hand towards the Birch wood. Around them, the work boxes and linen baskets full of mending, demonstrated that kitchen chores were complete and the pair intended to hunker down for an afternoon's plain sewing and gossip.

"You shouldn't be letting them wander off all day goodness knows where, just the two of them. They have scarce had a minute apart since Gilbert arrived home last week. Out at dawn, back at sunset, or _after sunset_ ," said Mrs Rachel, with awful italics, "and not a single eye to see that they remain within the bounds of propriety but that of Providence itself."

"I would have thought Providence to be a good enough chaperone," said Marilla, dryly. "As for their scampering off all over the countryside together, well, they have done it often enough for many years now, it would look most peculiar if I was to try and put a stop to that now."

"Yes, but they weren't engaged then." retorted Mrs Lynde, unanswerably. "Marilla, you mark my words, there will be nothing but trouble come of letting them wander off, goodness knows where, for day after day. Anne has always provided fuel for the gossips, not that I am one to talk out of turn, you know Marilla, but those Pyes are starting to get real insinuating. All the talk is that Gilbert will be dropping his medical course and coming home to farm after all. And with a hasty marriage and a _six month baby_ to follow!" Mrs Lynde's italics increased in their awfulness at this.

"Three years is a long time, and they have both worked so hard, not to mention the Blythe farm is so diminished, what with John Blythe selling chunks here and there to help pay Gilbert's way through college - it's a boon and a blessing that Gilbert got that scholarship - that there would be hardly anything left to handover if Gilbert were to set aside medicine and return home!"

"And the pair of them just don't help themselves. Such a performance at the station last week, when Anne went to collect Gilbert. Mrs Hirom Sloane was there, waiting for the early train to Charlottetown, and she saw Anne race across the platform and positively _hurl herself_ at him." Mrs Rachel's italics became distinctly accusatory. "And there they were, kissing, in broad daylight, on the middle of the platform, in front of the station master, the driver, a train full of passengers and Mrs Hirom Sloane."

Mrs Rachel's tone implied that, whatever one may do in front of such an inconsequential audience as employees of the PEI railway company, and a whole train-full of nameless passengers, to be caught in impropriety under the candid gaze of a Sloane of Avonlea, was a piece of foolhardiness beyond redemption.

"I know you have brought her up with good principles," continued Mrs Lynde, relentlessly, as Marilla attempted an indignant interjection at this point, "but Anne has always been a mite over-emotional. A girl like that, susceptible to her ruling passions, it's not to be wondered at if she finds it difficult to resist temptation. And I think everyone would agree that Gilbert Blythe is tempting."

Mrs Lynde became meditative at this point. "He's always been a good looking boy, the Blythes have always been noted for their charm, but he's turning into a real handsome young man. When you think what a pale, spindly creature he was last autumn, following the fever, it's remarkable the way he's filled out." Mrs Rachel's reverie came to a close and she continued briskly, "But I wonder at you Marilla, allowing her to be so often led into temptation."

"Well Rachel," interpolated Marilla, as Mrs Rachel paused briefly to draw breath, "they are not children anymore."

"I know that!" interjected Mrs Lynde, "that's what I'm afraid off!"

"As I said," continued Marilla, tightly, "they are not children and more than capable of making their own decisions, with all due consideration for the consequences. I trust them to know what is right; I trust _both_ of them to know what is right. What's more, Gilbert Blythe is a patient man, I trust him to do what is right."

"Men!" Retorted Mrs Rachel scornfully, "you can't be trusting to men in a situation like this. They are all the same, even the good ones can't be stopped once their dander's up. Not that you could be expected to know, of course," refined Mrs Rachel, suddenly mindful of Marilla's spinster status; "but all men are sinners and subject to the lusts of the flesh."

There was a brief pause, as Mrs Lynde reflected on the awfulness of the baser sex, before delivering her final, quelling, opinion on the matter: "For the works of the flesh are manifest[i], and when we are in the flesh, the motions of sins do work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death[ii]."

Marilla, who knew better than to pursue a subject once Rachel Lynde had begun to invoke scripture, resumed her stitching. Although quite where Mrs Rachel had gathered her evidence that all men were lascivious, lustful ravishers of innocent maidens, Marilla couldn't fathom. Certainly, she would never think about the meek, mild-mannered, Thomas Lynde in quite the same way again. She merely reiterated her trust in the pair to behave with sense and decorum and, as she repeated the mantra, sincerely hoped that she was correct.

* * *

[i] Galatians 5:19

[ii] Romans 7:5


	2. Ghosts

_(AN: Thank you so much for the encouraging reviews for my first chapter. I still feel like I am taking very tentative first steps in trying my hand at writing, so it is wonderful to know that people are reading, and enjoy what I have written. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to tell me so. It is particularly thrilling when people whose work I have read and adore tell me that what I've written is good (I'm looking at you, Katherine, Bertha, Alinya). I will get round to individual responses, but suffice to say, your good opinion matters and I am thrilled to have it._

 _I have tried to get a second chapter out as quickly as I could. As I was starting to feel a bit responsible for being able to continue what I'd started, now that others had read it and were waiting for the next instalment. After posting the first chapter, I soon realised that, beyond starting on the porch at Green Gables, and planning to get to the end of the summer, I had no real idea what was going to come next. So I mulled things over for a couple of days and then tried planning out what might happen in the forthcoming weeks. Then I set Anne and Gil off down Lovers Lane and what happened next was nothing like what I'd planned!_

 _But I hope you enjoy it anyway. I am very new to this and still learning, so your comments are very welcome and very gratefully received.)_

 **Chapter 2: Ghosts**

The two lovers walked silently, through the dappled shade of the birch trees, each gazing in ardent contemplation at the beauty before them.

Anne soaked up the familiar, dear places, delighting to be walking through lovers lane hand in hand with her own lover; and he the boy with whom she had so often trod this path, with no real notion of how dear and familiar he was to become to her. So often, since that glorious day last autumn, when they had exchanged hopes and dreams and promises in Hester Gray's garden, she had wondered how she could have been so blind, how she had not noticed the love blossoming all around her, rooted in the very soil she now trod, throwing out new shoots and blooms and branches with every passing year.

Like the trees and the flowers, the brooks, the Lake of Shinning Waters, the Snow Queen and the dear comfort of Green Gables, the hand that held hers was full of the joy and the savour of home. She squeezed it a little tighter, remembering momentarily how close she had come to almost losing that home completely.

The past few days had been full of delights. Anne, who had arrived back in Avonlea a full week before Gilbert, had begun to reacquaint herself with the trees and brooks and flowers of home, almost from the first moment she stepped foot into Green Gables. But retracing those steps with Gilbert more than doubled the delight. Places that she thought she knew so well took on a new spark and polish, when adorned with the beauty and clarity of shared love.

Locations that had hosted memorable past events were greeted by rapt "do you remembers", the episodes recalled so often re-examined for the traces of the developing love, that now surged so fiercely through her. And now, those sites were anointed with the oil of their love; new memories attached to the shady nooks and hidden dells: of sweet kisses, soft touches and warm, tender, embraces.

She paused now, before a tall, stately, birch tree, with a mossy stump alongside, forming an improvised woodland throne. One of many along this path; but of particular note as the impromptu desk that had borne the creation of many an early literary treasure. Here Anne's former self had dreamed up disaster, calamity and despair for the heroines of her story club epics. Here brooding, melancholy heroes had agonised over nameless wrongs, and swept their lovers into idealised, fairy tale endings, whence their creator almost followed. She sat down, clasping the hand she held even tighter.

Gilbert sat alongside her, taking Anne's other hand in his and smiling down at her. Even after all this time, he could still scarcely believe that she was his. His to share dreams and hopes with, his to touch, and to hold, and to kiss. He longed to kiss her now, but he saw the cloud in her grey gaze and checked himself. Instead, he dropped a delicate kiss on those seven dear freckles and said lightly, "Anne-girl, what dark secret does this otherwise innocuous looking tree stump hold? You are looking rather guilty"

Anne looked seriously. "I am feeling guilty, Gilbert, and foolish and idiotic and so wasteful! I am starting out on a glorious Avonlea summer, with you by my side and in my heart, and everywhere we go I am reminded of how many more such summers we might have already had, if I hadn't been such a little fool".

"O Anne,"murmured Gilbert, pulling her closer and wrapping his arms around her, "don't waste time on regret, what matters is we are together now and have a whole lifetime of summers to live together from now on." He dropped a kiss on her forehead and then looked around.

"But why stop here? What is it about this particular spot that has brought on such melancholy reflections?"

"Because, whilst I know now that I have never, and will never, love anyone but you Gilbert, I didn't always know myself as well as I do now. This is where I met my supposed first love."

Gilbert looked puzzled, "but you met Gardner in Kingsport, he never came to Avonlea, ...did he?"

"Oh no, not Roy" Anne returned, hastily.

"Then who else?" Said Gilbert, "you can't have been hiding lovers out in the woods," he grinned, and raised an eyebrow, "Mrs Lynde wouldn't permit it!"

His grin widened and he dropped onto his knees beside the broad stump, running his hands over the bark and peering closely at the cracks and breaks on the surface.

"What are you doing Gil?" asked Anne in some bemusement, "What are you looking for?"

"There must be some marks on here that hold the clue to this mystery; somewhere on this venerable old tree is a roughly carved heart, with the initials A.S and C.S, bearing testament to a rich and enduring love." He winked at her and looked so mischievous that Anne felt the butterflies, that had been hovering in the pit of her stomach since she first caught sight of him alighting from the boat train at Bright River last week, fluttering yet again.

She caught her breath and retorted, "Don't be absurd Gilbert. I may have been a deluded little fool, but I wasn't a complete idiot. Of course it wasn't Charlie Sloane."

"Ah, I'm forgetting, the first heartbroken lothario was Billy Andrews, albeit by proxy, I'm looking for the wrong monogram. Although that one would probably need to be A.S and B.A via J.A!"

"Gilbert!" Snapped Anne, "you are being ridiculous, I never cared a jot for Billy Andrews, nor gave him any reason to suppose I did. Of course I am not referring to either of those absurd creatures who fancied they may have loved me at one time. You were closer with your first guess; I _was_ hiding lovers out in the woods, of a sort that not even Mrs Lynde could discover me with."

"Secret hidden lovers, hidden beyond the ken of Mrs Rachel Lynde! Is there such a hiding place within 20 miles of Avonlea?" Gilbert looked down at Anne and whispered conspiratorially, "If there is I need to find it!" He pulled her closer and murmured softly in her ear, "and take you there."

Anne blushed hotly at this and looked down in confusion, torn between a desire to press herself close to Gilbert and reprise the long, passionate, kisses that they had shared so frequently in their time alone together, and a need to finish her confession. Confession won out and she contented herself with a soft kiss on his ear before pulling back and continuing.

"The reason Mrs Lynde would never discover them is because they were imaginary. Dark, proud, and melancholy. Handsome of course, wild, dashing and wicked. And each adoring their heroine with tributes of flowers and poetry."

Anne looked squarely at Gilbert before continuing, "I convinced myself that it was real, in the same way that I imagined the ghosts in the haunted wood were real; but this time I didn't just try to avoid walking through the woods, I wasted years looking for a version of love that didn't exist; thinking that Roy was my ideal, when my ideal was no more real than those ghosts! Gilbert, how could I have been such a fool? Maybe Mrs Lynde is right and that's what comes of filling my head with nonsense from poetry and novels and getting chock full of romantical notions. I was too busy dreaming up a hero, based on what I read and imagined, to be able to recognise the real love that was right here, in front of me."

Gilbert smiled. The love he felt for her washed over him again. "Anne," he said softly, "it really doesn't matter. Nothing worthwhile was ever easily won, what matters is that we are together, right now."

"But that's easy for you to say, you are not the one with the regret. You always knew you loved me, you didn't waste time looking for an Elaine, or an Ida, or some other heroine from Romance; you loved me, plain Anne Shirley, from the off."

"But Anne," whispered Gilbert, placing both hands on her shoulders and staring intently into her wide grey eyes, "don't think that I never looked for the same love as you, the one that was described in stories and Romance, that I read, and recited, just like you did. The only difference was that you took the heroes from literature and wove new dreams and images around them. I never needed to search for an Ideal, because whenever I read of Elaine, or Princess Ida, or an unnamed Rhineland sweetheart; I saw only you".

"I think," continued Gilbert, cupping Anne's chin in his hands and dropping a soft kiss fleetingly on her cheek, "that we need to exorcise these ghosts."

Then their lips met at last, full of understanding and promise and passion.


	3. Wild strawberries

**Chapter 3: Wild strawberries**

Gilbert lay on his back, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, feeling delightfully full, warm and content. Anne was sat close by, weaving a crown of daisies and eating intermittent strawberries. They were picnicking in Mr Bell's pasture, in the shadow of the old spruce grove, supplementing the delicacies in Anne's basket with the last of the wild strawberries.

It was like old times, yet deliciously unlike. Many times in the preceding years had they sat in the same spot, eating the same crop; many times had Gilbert attempted to win, first her attention and then her favour. Now he had more than his boyish self could have imagined possible. Anne not only acknowledged him: she loved him!

"Anne," called Gilbert, lazily, "pass me a strawberry, I am too full and content to move."

"Lazy bones," she retorted, throwing the fruit towards him. Gilbert made a half-hearted attempt at a catch, but her aim was inexpert and it sailed well wide of its target.

"Try again," he instructed, "that was poor attempt at a pass. Like this." He demonstrated by sitting up and throwing the strawberry she had passed him up in the air, catching it in his open mouth.

"Well excuse me!" she exclaimed "but pitching is not a skill I have exercised much. If you are too weak and feeble to forage for yourself, I just have to see what I can do. Lie back."

Gilbert lay back expectantly, but instead of the strawberry sailing over his head, he felt Anne's fingers at the corner of his month, gently parting his lips and popping a small, ripe strawberry between them. He shivered a little at the touch and swallowed quickly.

"You seem to have hit upon a technique that doesn't depend on your throw," he drawled, "but I'd like to check that it wasn't just a fluke, any chance you could do it again?"

Anne obliged. But this time her fingers traced a route along his chest, before stopping at his mouth. This time, his lips captured not only the strawberry, but the fingers that held it. He heard her gasp, as he sucked her fingertip; then he bit down on the fruit and savoured the taste of soft warm strawberry, intermingled with soft warm Anne.

She leaned over him. Her hair, loosened from its pins and adorned with daisies, brushed his chin, as she reached over his chest to pluck another strawberry from the patch near his head. This time, she didn't drop it in his mouth, but pressed it into his hand. Gilbert feared that this was a hint that he had gone too far with the previous, stolen, bite.

"I think perhaps it's time you demonstrated your own aim," she said, lying back, in an attitude similar to his. Gilbert propped himself up on his elbows and leaned over her. His fingers reprised the journey hers had taken, running lightly up from her navel to her chest, outlining the swell of her breast, tracing a line along her outstretched neck and chin, and then parting those sweet, red, lips. He placed the fruit gently in her mouth and thrilled at the feeling of her lips capturing his finger as well.

He knew only too well, how much her touch excited him, but this was a bliss almost painful in its rapture. He watched her with awe as she lay, head back, eyes closed. A small trail of strawberry juice was escaping from the corner of her mouth, he captured it with his thumb and thrilled again, as Anne's lips captured the offering, licking the juice and sucking it clean.

She released his fingers only to replace them with his mouth. Weaving her fingers into his hair and drawing his face towards hers. Their lips met hungrily as they savoured the sweet taste of strawberries and the sweeter taste of each other.

Gilbert thrilled at the feel of Anne's arms around him, his neck and jaw tingling with her touch, as she ran her fingers through his, increasingly unruly, curls. He clasped her closer, one hand echoing her own exploration of neck and chin and ruddy tresses, the other snaking down her back, tracing the soft outline of her figure. The gap between them almost entirely closed now. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, Gilbert heard his better self, warning him that kissing Anne like this, and being so kissed, whilst laying alongside one another, was asking for trouble; that he really ought to draw back now. But Anne's touch was too perfect, the taste of her so sweet; to feel her so close: chest, knees, arms touching, was so heady, so exhilarating, he could not move. Instead he deepened the kiss, pressing his body closer to hers.

Abruptly, Anne pulled away, "did you hear a whistle?" She hissed.

"A whistle?" thought Gilbert, dazedly, "I can hear a whole symphony!" He pulled himself from his reverie and gazed, blinking, about him. Sure enough, he could hear the sound of whistling in the distance. He propped himself up on his elbows and peered through the grass that surrounded them. He could see a figure walking up the lane in the direction of the schoolhouse. A few moments later, he could perceive that the whistler was Emmanuel Boute, Eben Wright's hired man, making his way back from the fields.

"Humm, looks like we're going to have company soon," Gilbert murmured. Anne sat up, blushing, and attempted to restore order to her hair. As she had completely forgotten about the garland of daisies she had crowned herself with earlier, her attempts met with markedly little success.

Gilbert, musing primarily on Sloanes, and then ruefully thankful for the providential appearance of Emmanuel Boute, whose presence had provided the constraint that his own conscience had been unable to supply, got slowly to his feet. He bore the greater part of the conversational burden in the brief interchange that followed, Anne evidently still confused into unusual silence at having been so nearly found lying in a lover's embrace.

As Emmanuel walked on, Gilbert turned to Anne, putting his hand in hers and pulling her to her feet. "It's probably time we headed homewards ourselves, Marilla will be expecting you."

"I suppose we ought to get back." said Anne, reluctantly. "Marilla will expect me when she sees me, but Mrs Lynde has been awfully twitchy about our spending so much time together since you arrived home. Apparently Mrs Hiram Sloane was at the station when you arrived on Saturday and reported my scandalous lack of decorum directly to Rachel Lynde at the earliest opportunity. Rachel has been muttering ominously about us being 'joined at the hip' and that 'no good can come out of being always in each other's pockets'. I fear we might be causing some Avonlea scandal, which today's episode will no doubt fuel."

"Well, let us be thankful that, whenever we stand on the brink of impropriety, there are always Sloanes to set us back upon the narrow way!" observed Gilbert with a wry smile. "And let us not invoke the wrath of Mrs Rachel Lynde within the first week of our glorious summer. I shall deliver you back to the safety and sanctity of Green Gables without delay."

With that Gilbert took up the empty picnic basket with one hand and held his other out to Anne; clasping his hand in hers as they set off together on the path towards Green Gables.

After a while Gilbert broke their companionable silence. "You know Anne, Mrs Lynde need not be over anxious, however much I would like to, I can't remain in your pocket all summer."

"What do you mean Gil?" Responded Anne anxiously, "You are not going away? We promised that we would both be home for this summer at least."

"Oh, I'm not going away, I am definitely home for the summer; but Kingsport boarding houses don't pay for themselves, so I do need to work. I will be working for Mr Haram Andrews for the next couple of weeks. Then I may give Fred Wright a hand with his summer planting. You are looking at Avonlea's latest hired boy!"

"That's a relief, I thought for one awful minute that you were going to say you'd taken a post on the Enterprise and were off to Charlottetown and I might only see you at the weekends."

"No fear of that," Gilbert assured her, "I promised you, and my folks, that I would be home for summer and that's where I mean to stay. But we won't have so many whole days to ourselves anymore. The Cooper prize has covered most of my expenses for this year and next, but I need to get enough put by this summer to pay my way to the end of the course."

"But what about next summer" asked Anne, "do you not plan to work then? Oh Gil, do you mean for us to have a whole summer off together? How wonderful!"

"Well, not exactly," returned Gilbert, hesitantly, unwilling to dampen Anne's rapture, "but you know," he continued confidentiality, "I happen to be getting married in a couple of years' time and, whilst my wife-to-be assures me that sunbursts and marble halls are not required, even the tiniest house of dreams must be furnished. We need to live somewhere Anne, and I must have the means to provide it."

Anne sighed, torn between disappointment, at the popping of a small bubble of hope for an idyllic, idle summer, and joy, as she immediately began to start mentally furnishing her, long imagined, house of dreams.

They walked on in silence for a little longer, tracing their steps back back through the shadowy bower of the haunted wood, towards the Green Gables gate, each wrapped in delightful dreams of their future home. As they approached the lane, Anne stopped and turned to face Gilbert, unwilling to leave the privacy of their fern scented, pine clad bower for the open road.

"I suppose, since I must sacrifice you to Mr Harmon Andrews tomorrow, I had better bid you a lasting adieu." With that she wrapped her arms around Gilbert's neck and leant up to kiss him.

It was some minutes before they emerged from the trees into the lane. Gilbert lingered as the gate, as he so often did but, mindful of the day's labour on the morrow, and an implacable Mrs Lynde within, curtailed his stay. With a whispered promise to meet again at the same spot tomorrow evening, he dropped a light kiss on Anne's cheek before waving her off up the drive towards the lighted porch.

Anne raced up the drive, turning at the door to blow kisses towards the gate. Gilbert waved again, returning the kiss and, noting the twitching curtains, blew another in the direction of Mrs Rachel Lynde's parlour window. The curtains closed with a snap and Gilbert, chuckling softly to himself, turned on his heel and set off for home.


	4. waiting and working — and dreaming

_(AN: Thank you all so much for the reviews, it is really encouraging to know that people are reading and enjoying what I've written. Mrs Lynde muscled her way into this chapter uninvited, but I enjoy writing her so much that I was happy to accommodate her.)_

 **Chapter 4: waiting and working - and dreaming**

"Say Anne, are there any more plum puffs, Marilla only packed half a dozen and there will be me, and Milty Boulter and Archie Sloane. Two plum puffs apiece ain't enough to support a body for a whole day!"

Davy held out the basket beseechingly, looking for all the world like a boy who had been dispatched for a day's fishing with nothing more to sustain him than a couple of plum puffs, and whatever he might scavenge for himself with his rod.

Despite the already groaningly full basket, Anne fished another half dozen plum puffs from the tin where Marilla stored them.

"There you go, be off with you before Marilla notices."

Davy scarpered. Anxious to be off for his day's pleasure before Marilla either noticed the indentures made into her baking, or bethought herself of any additional chores Davy might be called upon to complete before his holiday could begin.

Dora, more efficient than Davy in the completion of her allotted tasks, had already disappeared up the towards Orchard Slope, for a day exchanging secrets with Minine May Barry.

Anne washed the remainder of the breakfast things, humming gently to herself. Today might not start and end with Gilbert, which was a disappointment, but the sun was shining and the woods were beckoning, and Anne was not the sort of girl to waste a glorious summer day at Green Gables, pining for what might have been.

She wrung the dishcloth and folded it, in the particular manner that Marilla approved off, and then peered into to the pantry, whither that lady was engaged in counting jars in preparation for the afternoon's jam making.

"Is there anything else you need me to do this morning, dearest Marilla?" called Anne, "the twins have both escaped, loaded with victuals, and I am set to follow their example once all my chores are done."

"Nothing else, thank you Anne." replied Marilla, "Rachel and I will be starting jam making shortly and I think we can safely say that the kitchen will be full enough with the pair of us. Where are you wandering off to today? When do you expect Gilbert to arrive?"

"Gilbert won't arrive until after supper," sighed Anne, "he's hiring out to Mr Andrews for the next fortnight, so I'll only be able to see him in the evenings. It does seem hard not to see him every day when we have had so little time together this past year – I was so hoping to spend the whole summer together."

"You do borrow trouble, Anne," replied Marilla, emerging from the pantry with an armful of jam jars which she set down on the kitchen table, "You'll still be seeing Gilbert every day. He's not going to get a chance to forget about you."

"And it's no bad thing that you are having a little time apart," interjected Rachel Lynde, who had walked straight into Marilla's kitchen and the current conversation. "It ain't good to be spending so much time in each other's pockets, you don't want to be getting over-familiar at this stage of your engagement, you've another two years to wait yet, you know!"

Anne blushed hotly, "I know that." she murmured.

"Of course, Gilbert needs to work for at least some of the summer, it does him credit that he is planning to. I know that scholarship of his has paid for most of his school costs, but if the pair of you are going to be married straight from college, then he needs to be putting aside something to set up home with. As do you young lady" interposed Mrs Lynde with a stern look at Anne.

Anne started to assure Mrs Rachel that she was indeed setting aside a portion of her salary for that very purpose, but Mrs Rachel's pause was a brief one and she continued her tirade before Anne could speak.

"Only two years out from setting up housekeeping and not a stitch of fancy work prepared." continued Mrs Rachel in admonitory accents. "Diana Wright had every one of 38 doilies crocheted before she married; a year engaged and you've not got even one! But then you are a B.A. and are likely too much taken up with geography and geometry and the like to be attending to your sewing." Mrs. Lynde reflected sorrowfully on the seemingly high cost of female higher education, in lost sheets and pillow cases. "Although what on earth you can have been doing with yourself all winter that you haven't even begun to fill your hope chest".

"I have been weaving words and embroidering dreams, dearest Mrs Lynde," replied Anne, smiling, "and my chest is so full of hope that not even a million doilies could begin to attest to it!"

"Well, it's all well and good talking such highfaluting nonsense, I am not a BA, I couldn't hope to understand you; but you can't set up housekeeping on poetry' that's what!" A scandalous thought crossed Mrs Lynde's mind. "I don't suppose that you intend to be buying in your trousseau?"

Mrs Lynde's tone implied that the home of any self-respecting housewife had better remain entirely doily-less, than be sullied by the inclusion of manufactured lace.

"Perhaps I will, Mrs Lynde," twinkled Anne, "Or perhaps Gilbert and I can begin an ethnological experiment to see if it is actually possible for a couple to begin married life together happily with no doilies at all!"

"I don't know about your ethno-thingumies and such like, but I do know what is proper. Gilbert won't be able to support extravagant housekeeping, at least, not to begin with, and starting married life with not a stich to your name, it isn't decent, that's what."

Anne, who was suddenly filled with a vision of starting married life without a stitch to her name, and Gilbert's opinion thereof, blushed darkly and stuttered incoherently.

Mrs Rachel, interpreting Anne's speechlessness as capitulation, pressed home her advantage. "Proverbs 31!" she declared, triumphantly, "she looketh well to the ways of her household,

and eateth not the bread of idleness.[i]"

Anne collected her scattered wits and responded, "But consider the lilies of the field, Mrs Lynde: "they toil not, neither do they spin[ii]", I am sure Gilbert will consider me arrayed even as Solomon in all his glory should I arrive at our marriage with not a stitch upon me!"

Before Mrs Rachel could gather together her slowly dawning indignation at having Holy Writ used against her in such a scandalous manner, Anne fled from the kitchen, calling behind her, "I'll be back for tea, Marilla," she popped her head back round the door and added, as an afterthought, "that is, supposing I have not feasted too much on the bread of idleness before then!" With that Anne winked at Marilla and then turned on her heels and fled.

Anne sped down the lane chuckling to herself at the recollection of Rachel Lynde's outraged countenance, as she realised the scandalous way Anne had twisted, not only her words, but those of scripture as well! She fairly skipped along Lovers Lane, heading for the dappled shade of the beech wood ahead.

In truth, she had shocked herself. It was one thing to imagine herself naked before Gilbert on their wedding day; goodness knows, it was a dream that had recurred fairly often this past week, but quite something else to say as much, and to Rachel Lynde of all people!

Anne had assured Gilbert that she was quite happy to work and wait and dream for the three years he was at medical school, but she'd had no notion a year ago about the turn her dreams might start to take! It seems that every time Gilbert touched her, kissed her, she wanted more. And she could scarcely keep herself from touching him, whenever and wherever she saw him. She thought back to that first meeting at the station. She hadn't intended to make such an exhibition of herself, but as soon as she saw Gilbert on the platform she could not bear to let another moment pass without feeling him in her arms, running her fingers through his hair, and kissing him with the full force of months of suppressed feeling.

Church on Sunday had been almost unbearable. She had attended to the service hardly at all, preoccupied as she was with looking at Gilbert, who was sat across the aisle from her in the Blythe pew. She had spent practically the whole service just looking at him, her gaze drinking in every tiny detail of his face and figure.

During the bidding prayers she had been focused on the set of his shoulders, then, in the hymn, the way she could just make out the swell of his biceps beneath the light fabric of his summer jacket. Through the confession she had traced the line of his back and imaged running her fingers over the taut muscles she had just outlined. Further confession was required after she let her gaze drop to his thighs, as he sat down after the next hymn.

The sermon was spent in admiration of the curls clustering around his neck, and willing herself not to lean across and plant a kiss there. During the intercessions she had focused mainly on his face, itching to stoke her fingers gently across his cheek and jaw. By the closing hymn, she was a tingling, shivering wreak, feeling that she must touch him or explode.

When she finally crossed the church yard to meet him after service, and laid a hand on his arm, it was as if an electric current ran through her, such was her heightened awareness and anticipation of his touch. Gilbert too, had almost flinched, as if shocked. As a consequence, their meeting in the woods that afternoon had had a particular savour. Anne smiled dreamily at the recollection of that particular woodland tryst.

Having him in Avonlea with her, made Gilbert seem to occupy her thoughts in a way he couldn't at Summerside. There he was confined to quiet reveries in her tower room, or wistful musing in her walks around Spooks Lane. With work her main focus, waiting and dreaming didn't seem so excruciating; but here, where every tree and brook and fern spoke of shared adventures and joined hopes, there seemed no space in her thoughts for anything but Gil.

She stopped, having arrived at her destination and, pulling a notebook and pencil from her apron pocket, sat down upon the mossy tree stump, that had served her so well as a desk in years gone by. Anne shivered delightedly at the recollection of her last visit here. This had always been one of her secret places, sacred to childish dreams and imaginings. Now it was scored with the remembrance of Gilbert. She ran her hands across the bark, tracing the newly transcribed inscription: "AS + GB", Gilbert had insisted on that! What a wicked, funny, dear delightful boy he was! No, not boy, she corrected herself, with a sudden recollection of the kisses they had shared on this spot, but there was something about Gil that was eternally youthful. She could image him at 80, still giving her the same sly winks, whenever he said something outrageous.

This thrilled her more than anything. Imagine a whole lifetime together! She began to weave pictures in her mind, populating her house of dreams with brown-haired children, with hazel eyes, that were theirs to love and cherish together; to be sure, a little red-headed girl kept wandering into her daydream, upon whom Gil seemed to dote especially. But a whole lifetime! What were two more years in comparison to that?

Anne pulled herself from her reverie, packing tomorrow carefully away and returning back to today, she picked up her pen and notebook. "To work, Anne Shirley" she admonished herself sternly, and with that, began to write.

Gilbert leaned negligently on his pitchfork, gazing around him at the field of half cut hay and the other workers tossing the hay swiftly and expertly into the wagon. He was not used to this anymore. He had hired out over the vacations, on neighbouring farms, earlier in his Redmond career, but, as it got too painful to return to the Island, he had sought more lucrative and less physically demanding, work in Kingsport or Charlottetown. Last summer, of course, he had worked only at staying alive. Apart from occasionally helping out at home during short vacations (work his mother always cut short, so as to make time to feed him up!) he had not worked on the land for some years. And it showed. His arms and back ached with the unaccustomed movements and, whilst he was just about keeping pace with the rest of the men, he knew his reputation, for delivering the work of three men for the price of one, was going to be terminally damaged after this week.

He picked up a clump of red earth and crumbled it between his fingers. He loved his island, loved the fields and trees, woods. But he had known for some time that, for all he cared about his hometown, Avonlea was his past, not his future. He couldn't love this small patch of land in the way that he saw his father did, gaining genuine pleasure from seeing the variety of changing seasons and cycles of growth take place over and over again in same place. For all they were an Island race, the life in Avonlea was peculiarly inward looking, its inhabitants focusing on the life that came from the land, with the shore and the raging ocean beyond a, largely unexplored, backdrop.

In generations past he imagined he would have responded to the restlessness within him, the dissatisfaction with a life played out on such a small stage, by joining a ship and sailing off across those oceans. Now he had the opportunity to navigate a course through the waves of disease and ignorance; he knew that would take him out of Avonlea, with its ordered comfort and complacency, to places with wider horizons and greater needs.

He didn't know where yet. Much depended on where he could get established in a practice, for he knew he wanted to serve the community from within, not be locked away inside a hospital. He might not be much of a farm boy anymore, but he knew he would not be happy within the confines of an institution, hemmed in by the town. He needed those open spaces and broad horizons. Much also depended on Anne. He knew how much she loved her adopted island, and she was a flower that bloomed best in open spaces. He needed to be sure that he set them off on their life together in a place where they could both thrive and see hard won dreams come to fruition.

He took a wisp of hay and rubbed it across his sweating brow. It was all well and good having plans and dreams to work towards, but the waiting was becoming increasingly difficult. At least the hard labour gave his aching body some vent for its frustration. It was getting increasingly difficult to keep within the bounds of propriety in his encounters with Anne. His dreams were increasingly vivid and the reality hardly less so. If Emmanual Boute hadn't come whistling up the lane when he did, who knows what else, besides strawberries, he may have tried to consume in Mr Bell's pasture!

If Anne would let him, of course. But there was the root of the whole, delicious problem. Anne was not like other girls, of course she wasn't, and that was why he loved her. She was not a coy citadel to be breeched. Now she had finally given him her love, she gave it frankly, fearlessly and fully. He knew she longed for him as much as he did for her, that his touch burned her, as much hers burnt him. She might blush, and she blushed delightfully, but her kisses were fierce and open, her touch firm and bold; she would no more repel his roving hands than she could curtail her own. And that, thought Gil resignedly, was why he must. He remembered a chance remark Fred Wright had made last week, whilst ribbing Gilbert about the hardships of a long engagement. Well, there would be no third button rule from Anne, no rationing of access, if one went they would all go! So it was up to him to ensure they didn't start what they had no hope of completing for another two years.

Two years! He had spent half his life wanting Anne and now she was within his reach. He had thought the promise was enough, to sustain him through the years of patient working and waiting. Hadn't he survived long enough thinking she would never be his? But the prize unwon was one thing, possessing the prize unclaimed was a whole new level of frustration.

He sighed and focused again on the hay cutting. When the waiting got too hard, there was always work, he supposed. "Back to work, Gilbert Blythe", he admonished himself and, taking up his pitchfork, dug in.

* * *

[i] Proverbs 31:27

[ii] Matthew 6:28


	5. All the days of his life

_(AN: thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review, it is a delightful affirmation. Mrs Lynde is not in this chapter but her influence is everywhere. The title is taken from Proverbs 31, entitled 'The Virtuous Wife'.)_

 **Chapter 5: All the days of his life**

Anne sat on the porch enjoying the last of the evening sunshine and looking anxiously up the lane. Gilbert was almost an hour late for their rendezvous and it wasn't like him to miss an opportunity to meet up, particularly since their time together had been curtailed for the past few days whilst he worked. It was bad enough that he was eating into their summer together with working, but to the not keep their evening tryst was doubly disappointing.

An awful thought flitted through her anxious mind, perhaps Gilbert didn't want to see her; maybe he had had enough of her? Maybe, she thought, with a blushing recollection of the previous evening, he was so disgusted by her forward-ness that he didn't want to see her! She paused and replayed the moment in her mind; no, that couldn't be the case, if Gilbert's response at the time was anything to go by, he wasn't at all displeased by her touches! Indeed his licensed hands had roved as much as hers, to glorious effect.

She was torn between anxiety that some accident could have occurred to delay him, irritation that he may have forgotten and the tiny, nagging fear that maybe he thought he ought to stay away now. She jumped to her feet, feeling that action was preferable to continued, unprofitable, speculation.

"I'm just going to pop down to the lane, Marilla," she said, for the fifth time that evening, "and see if he's on his way".

"For pity's sake, Anne, sit still! You have been bobbing about like a cat on hot bricks all evening; maybe Gilbert's just not coming tonight. He looked awful tired last night, and he's been working fearful hard for Mr Andrews this week, maybe Sarah Blythe decided to keep him home tonight. We don't want a repeat of last year."

Anne's mood immediately shifted from vexation with Gilbert for his tardiness, to self-reproach. Of course he was tired, he had said as much last night. This time last year he had been battling for his life and now, after an exhausting final term at medical school, he had come home and practically straight back into work. And she, selfish, thoughtless fiancée that she was, had hardly spared a thought for his health. She had given him no time to rest. She had hurled herself at him the moment he alighted from the train, then insisted he spent all his time with her thereafter. The poor boy was worked into the ground and She had been so preoccupied with what she wanted from him, she had scarcely noticed his fatigue at all!

With Anne, to think was to act; "Marilla, I am going to the Blythe farm." Anne declared, "I'm sure Gilbert must be ill and if he is I simply must see him."

Marilla knew there was little benefit in pointing out that it was a two mile walk to the Blythe homestead and there was scarcely an hour to go before sun set. She merely directed Anne to not forget her shawl, which Marilla gathered up off the floor and held out to her. Anne snatched up the shawl from Marilla's outstretched hand and, throwing it hastily around her shoulders, ran off down the lane. Marilla signed and went inside to fetch a lamp. Anne would likely be home well after dark and there were clouds beginning to gather overhead. It was just as well Rachel Lynde had retired to bed early with a sick headache. The last thing Marilla needed just now was Rachel's opinion on Anne's hasty visit to Gilbert, just as night was starting to fall.

Anne sped through the haunted wood, with scarcely a thought for her surroundings. The sun was beginning to drop, creating long, mysterious shadows and the scent of pines and the soft dampness of the ferns created an atmosphere that was close, verdant and voluptuous. But Anne hastened on, her feet as swift as ever they had been when her childish soul had imagined these woods peopled by nameless ghouls, arising from the recesses of her own fancy. Now she was haunted by a very real fear that the grim shadow, that had passed over Gilbert a year ago, might be lurking again.

It wasn't until she rounded the bend in the road and started up the lane to the Blythe farm that Anne began to wonder if perhaps she had acted a little hastily. Supposing he was fine, supposing he just didn't want to see her tonight. What would Mrs Blythe think of her, tearing all over the countryside at dusk, simply because Gilbert had fancied at night at home for a change. But having come this far, it would be even more foolish to turn back and the little nugget of fear, that still stuck in her throat, would not be assuaged until she could see Gilbert and be assured that all was well.

As she approached the house, Anne spotted a figure standing in the garden. The man, perceiving this late visitor, headed down the path to meet her. As she got closer, Anne was able to make out the features of Gilbert's father, John Blythe. Swallowing a tiny grain of disappointment, she greeted him as cheerfully as she could.

"Hello Mr Blythe", she called, "Sorry for calling so late, I just wanted to check that everything was ok with Gil. I was expecting him to call by a couple of hours ago an it's not like him to be late, or to not be there without letting me know, and I was a bit worried and just wanted to be sure..." She faltered to a close, not sure exactly what she wanted to ask. Then she continued, "oh, Mr Blythe, Gil isn't unwell is he? He's been looking so tired recently, I was so scared that he might be getting sick."

John Blythe looked at Anne keenly and inhaled unhurriedly on his pipe. "Well now, there's no real cause for such agitation. Sure the boy has been a bit tired, but there is nothing that a decent night's sleep and some Mackenzie's liniment won't fix. He ain't used to farm work anymore, that's what, and its fair knocking the wind out of his sails. He nodded off straight after supper and Sarah, thinking that a bit of honest tiredness meant he was likely sickening for something dreadful, wouldn't countenance me waking him, even though we knew he'd be likely due over at Green Gables tonight."

He looked again at Anne and saw, in Anne's luminous grey eyes, the same mix of fear and scepticism and irritation that his wife had levelled at him earlier, when he had made much the same assertion about Gilbert's state of health to her. He smiled at Anne and reiterated his assurances. "He's fine. Nothing ails the great lummox apart from being tired. And soft" he added, as an afterthought. "I'll let Sarah know you're here. Gilbert's over there." He nodded towards the veranda, where Gilbert lay on a sofa, a crocheted blanket tucked round him, "You can take a look and judge for yourself." With that Mr Blythe headed inside to inform his wife of their unexpected visitor.

Anne climbed softly onto the veranda, anxious not to wake the sleeping Gilbert. She did not wholly believe Mr Blythe's sanguine assessment of his son's condition and did not want to rob Gilbert of his sorely needed rest. She crept closer and gazed down at his sleeping form. He looked surprisingly young, and vulnerable in sleep. But, Anne noted with relief, he showed no signs of fever or disquiet. She dropped quietly to her knees, kneeling almost in benediction alongside him, and watched him sleep. His brown curls fell over his forehead and his long lashes brushed against his cheek. As she gazed at him Anne felt a wave of tenderness rush over her. Oh, how she loved him. She loved him with an all-consuming fierceness and passion, but also with tenderness and a deep, ardent protectiveness.

All at once, the words of the marriage vows crept into her mind. He would be hers to love and to cherish. As she gazed at his face, pink and flushed with sleep, and listening to his soft, steady breathing, she was overwhelmed with a desire to gather him into her arms and hold him safely to her. She would be his wife; he would be hers to buttress and uphold, to comfort and renew. All at once she wished it was she who had the right to decree he needed extra sleep, to withhold the outside world, whenever he needed it keeping at bay. She wanted to be the one to carry his burdens, to help him bear up in affliction, to wipe away his tears. She wanted to love him completely, in hardship as well as joy. To know him completely, even as she was fully known[i].

Gilbert's eye lids fluttered open and he blinked dazedly, adjusting his eyes to the gathering gloom around him. He saw Anne next to him and gazed uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then He begin to sit up, saying, as he struggled to prop himself up, "Anne, what on earth are you doing here? What time is it?" And, as he began to gauge his surroundings and remember where he should have been, "oh, I'm so sorry, Anne, I didn't mean to miss our appointment, I only sat down for a moment, I must have dropped off. I can't think why mother didn't wake me."

"Shush" whispered Anne, gazing down at Gilbert, her grey eyes aglow with a depth of love and tenderness that seemed to enfold him within her, "Don't apologise. It's me who ought to be sorry. I should have noticed you were getting worn out. And you don't need to race over to Green Gables every night, you know."

"But I want to see you. Anne I couldn't bear the thought of going to bed after a day spent so close by having not seen you at all." He looked across at her, half embarrassed, half defiant, "I need you, Anne" he whispered.

"And I need you Gil", Anne whispered, "You must know by now how much. But Gil, you must let me love you. You must lean on me occasionally, share your burdens with me; allow me to have the strength your weakness might require. When you are tired, I will bid Sleep to 'dwell upon thine eyes, [and] peace in thy breast'[ii]; when you fall, let me lift you up[iii]; if you are prevailed against, let me withstand your enemies with you." She pulled him into her arms, cradling his head against her chest.

"Gilbert Blythe, I am not going to let you sacrifice our present for the sake of building our future. Let me support you, let me work for you and," She dropped a kiss atop his curly head and smiled at him, "at the very least let me walk the two miles over to visit you occasionally."

Gilbert wrapped his arms around Anne's waist and leaned heavily against her, allowing himself to lie back into her arms. "I'm sorry Anne; I just want to be able to provide for you as I ought, to look after you, to give you the home you dream off. I want to give you everything you deserve and for it all to come from me."

"Then give me yourself, Gilbert Blythe," whispered Anne, wrapping her fingers through his curls, "give me yourself to love and to cherish; and I will do you good and not evil all the days of my life[iv]."

Sarah Blythe stood in the shadows on the edge of the veranda, a long forgotten tea tray set down beside her. She watched as Anne cradled Gilbert's head to her breast, fondling his chestnut curls and murmuring unintelligible, sweet, loving nothings to her half-slumbering boy. A small knot in her heart, that Sarah had hardly known was even there, untied. Her boy was safe, she knew that now, he was safe.

* * *

[i] From 1 Corinthians 13:12

[ii] Romeo and Juliet

[iii] Ecclesiastes 4:10

[iv] Proverbs 31:12


	6. Under the same roof

_(AN: sorry the updates have slowed down. I have been on holiday with minimal connectivity and a four year old with maximum energy. Time to write has been scarce and an opportunity to publish non-existent. I didn't intend on writing the following, but the characters insisted. It may possibly be slightly anachronistic; it is definitely T-ish. Readers of a delicate disposition may want to look away...)_

 **Chapter 6: Under the same roof**

The sun had long disappeared over the horizon and the moon was on the rise when the sound of the clattering tea tray broke Anne and Gilbert from their reverie. Gilbert sat up, pushing the blanket off his legs as he did, and drew Anne up to sit beside him on the sofa.

"Mother?" called Gilbert, "is that you?"

Sarah Blythe started from her distraction and, picking up the tea tray, replied, "Yes Gilbert. I've brought tea out but, given that it's come on dark, you might be best coming inside now." With that she propped open the door and beckoned the pair into the kitchen.

"Come on in and have a drink and a bite of supper. It's way past your bedtime young man." She turned to Gilbert and continued admonishingly, "I don't know what you are thinking off, wearing yourself out like that. I'll send word to Mr Andrews that you are not fit to work tomorrow."

"Aww no, there's no need for that," interposed Gilbert, flushing, "I'm fine, all I did was fall asleep. I'm not ill and I am not a child, mother!" Gilbert's tone got sharper as Mrs Blythe attempted to simultaneously straighten his collar and smooth down his wayward curls.

"I don't care how grown up you think you are, I am not having you getting ill; I don't want a repeat of last year. You are not the only hired hand Harmon Andrews can get this summer, you know, and there's no need to be working yourself into the ground for the pittance you can earn from that quarter." Sarah Blythe sniffed dismissively, "and it's not like you can't pay your way next year, what with the scholarship money you have set aside; and you know your father won't see you short."

Gilbert flushed again and attempted to cut short his mother's flood of eloquence. "I know mother, but I just want to make sure I'm beforehand with the world, you and Dad have given me enough."

"And who else would we give it to, that's what I want to know? No arguing Gilbert. I am not seeing you run yourself down for no purpose. You need a holiday and that's what you are going to have, no more farm work you this summer. Anne," Mrs Blythe recalled her potential ally and enlisted her support, "you agree with me, don't you? Tell this silly, stubborn boy that I am right."

"You'll not have any argument from me, Mrs Blythe," laughed Anne. She had watched this interchange with growing amusement, as she witnessed Gilbert swiftly reduced to the status of a little boy, by his mother's fond scolding. "I've already told him not to wear him out with needless work. I think it's time he gave the people who love him an opportunity to look after him a little."

Gilbert looked from his mother to his fiancé; both seemingly ranged against him, and threw his hands up in the air in a mock gesture of defeat. "Alright, I give up," he laughed. "Only, let me go to see Mr Andrews myself tomorrow, if I'm going to have let him down, at least let me do it in person. You can't expect me to lay abed at home whilst my Mother makes excuses for me, be reasonable, Mama."

"Well, we'll see." Was all Mrs Blythe was prepared to concede. "And you be fit for going nowhere and doing nothing if you don't get yourself a decent night's sleep," she continued.

Anne, perceiving a hint to leave, immediately made to stand up; Mrs Blythe spotted her beginning to rise up out of her chair and gestured to her to sit down.

"No, no, don't you worry about heading back to Green Gables straight off, Anne dear," said Mrs Blythe, "John knew as soon as you arrived that you would be here till after night fall. We are not having you walking home alone thought the woods in the middle of the night."

"Oh, don't worry about me, Mrs Blythe, there should be enough starlight to guide me home," Anne assured her. "I'll be fine."

"And she won't be alone, Mother," remarked Gilbert, "I'll walk her home."

I'm not having the pair of you traipsing around Avonlea in the middle of the night." declared Mrs Blythe in a tone that brooked no argument. "Anne dear, the spare room is all made up and I'll put out a night gown for you. I propose that it's not long before we all retire, morning will be arriving soon enough and Marilla will no doubt want you back at Green Gables before the morning is too far advanced."

Anne, mindful of what Mrs Lynde's opinion of an impromptu stay over at the home of her betrothed would be, agreed readily with this suggestion.

Just then, the kitchen door opened, and John Blythe walked in, holding a small bag which he handed to his wife. "Marilla agreed with my suggestion that Anne stay with us tonight. She sent her overnight kit over. Sarah, I guess you'd best just set that in the spare room for Anne, then it's high time us old folks turned in. Gilbert," he turned to his son, looking him firmly in the eye, "I dare say your Mother has been imagining you in the midst of all sorts of fever; you don't need to tell me it's all nonsense, of course nothing ails you. But let's just keep it that way, eh? No more hiring out this summer. There's nothing wrong with a body taking a break once in a while."

He started towards the door, sheepherding his wife along with him. "We'll be turning in now. You children make sure you are not long after us. Gilbert will show you the spare room Anne. Good night all." With that John shut the kitchen door, taking with him a wife who was considerably more reluctant to leave the two lovers to put themselves to bed, unsupervised, at an increasingly advancing hour of the night.

Those two lovers, who remained in the kitchen, looked at one another almost sheepishly, each somewhat taken aback by the unexpected turn events had taken and the peculiar, apparent permissiveness, of their elders. Anne felt suddenly quite shy, feeling the full force of her impetuosity that had landed her in a situation which felt rather awkward and, she was sure, put Mrs Blythe out considerably - for all her apparent welcome. She had perceived Mrs Blythe's reluctance to leave the room, and felt profoundly conscious of the potential impropriety of her presence here.

Gilbert, his earlier fatigue almost entirely shaken off now, was also feeling conscious of the implications of this unexpected decision that Anne should stay here tonight. Not of the outward impropriety, of which he could see little to concern him in a plan proposed and sanctioned by his parents and Marilla, but of the waves of excitement that ran through him at the prospect of having Anne sleeping under the same roof as him. Anne being the last person to bid him goodnight; meeting her over the breakfast table, his breakfast table, in the morning. The spare room at the Blythe farm was a ground floor apartment, with Gilbert's bedroom directly above it. Gilbert took a sharp intake of breath. His would lie in bed tonight with Anne laying directly beneath him! Granted, not in the way she laid beneath him in his dreams, but close enough to imagine.

Anne, alive only to the embarrassment of her situation, was gazing at the floor, studying her feet intently as she traced anxious little patterns with the toe of her shoe. Her cheek was still tinted with the rosy blush that had suffused her face at Mrs Blythe's first mention of the inadvisability of her returning to Green Gables that night. Gilbert, keenly aware of the way her colour had heightened during the recent interchange with his parents, was even keener to help her overcome her awkwardness. He moved towards her now and, taking her chin in his hand, tilted her face up to look at him.

"What's the matter, Anne-girl?" He whispered, "Is the prospect of spending a night under my roof so very distasteful?" His hazel eyes twinkled and crinkled as he smiled down at her flushed face.

"It's not your roof, Gil, it's your parents' and I practically forced myself on them by arriving so very late." Anne returned, in an undertone. "What must they think of me?"

"Well, my father has always thought that you do me good, even when I thought otherwise," said Gil, with a twinkle, "and my mother, well, she has always been a little more partisan; but I don't think your dashing over here, with exactly the same absurd concerns that she has, makes her think badly of you. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"Well, I know she can't quite like my staying here Gil. I'm sure Marilla can't be pleased either, Mrs Lynde's lectures would be unbearable if she knew."

"Well I'll just have to deliver you back to Green Gables before Rachel Lynde realises you've been gone." said Gilbert, pulling Anne into his arms. "Anne, it seems to me that a lot of effort has been wasted worrying about the impropriety of us both sleeping under the same roof. And yet, nothing has occurred to give any weight to those worries." He dropped a feather light kiss on Anne's neck and continued, "That seems wrong somehow." Another kiss landed behind Anne's ear and Gilbert's hand spread across the small of her back. "I mean, if we are going to worry about what Mrs Lynde might think, surely we ought to give her something to be really shocked about?"

Gilbert's final teasing question was whispered onto Anne's lips, his mouth tantalising close to hers, "shall we?" He breathed. Anne gulped, and then, winding her arms around his neck and threading her fingers through his curls, gave a slight nod.

Gilbert needed no further sign. His lips captured herself he pulled her closer and closer into a firm embrace. His hands repeated the journey they had first made the previous night, snaking around her back and his fingertips brushing alongside the soft swell of Anne's breast. Anne, alive now only to the thrill of Gilbert's touch, returned his kiss with fervour, pressing her body closer and closer to his.

It was some minutes before Gilbert reluctantly pulled away. He was mindful Anne's precarious situation, and of his Father's unspoken warning. He held Anne gently away from him, his hands on her hips and smiled at her.

"Believe me my love, I am most, most reluctant to call a halt, but I think that was probably enough to make Rachel Lynde blush and I did promise to deliver you to your bed ere long."

Anne flung her arms round Gilbert's neck and hugged him fiercely. "Gilbert," she breathed, "I am scandalously in love with you. Oh you must know what a thrill I get when you kiss me and hold me. I am clearly lost to all proper feeling, but when you touch me like that, I don't ever want you to stop." She kissed him again, before continuing, "So, if I am not to sink myself below reproach forever, you had better deliver me to my maiden pillow and hie yourself home to your own quarters."

"You are absolutely right, as ever, Miss Shirley," returned Gilbert, pulling her close again and tracing a line of soft kisses from her ear to her collarbone.

Anne leaned into his embrace, arching her neck to extend the line, up which Gilbert's kisses might make a return journey. This he did. Continuing along her jaw and meeting her lips again in a rapturous reunion. Anne's hands made their own exploration, skimming over Gilbert's chest and upper arms, caressing the taut muscles beneath his shirt.

Gil inhaled sharply and pulled away. "Spare room," he whispered hoarsely, "I need to take you to the spare room." With that he snatched up the lamp from the kitchen table and taking Anne's hand, pulled her from the kitchen, out into the hall.

The spare bedroom was set at the foot if the stairs, across the hall from the parlour. Gilbert pushed the door open and peered in. His mother had set a candle on the wash stand, next to the bed. Gilbert strode over and lit the candle from the flame of the lamp he held. Anne sat on the edge of the bed, looking into the small carpet bag that was set on top of the apple leaf quilt. It contained a meticulously folded night gown and sundry other small items that all bore testament to Marilla's careful packing. Even in haste, it appeared that Marilla was unable to be slovenly.

Gilbert set the lamp down and turned to look at Anne. The fire in her hair danced in the flickering candlelight. Her pale skin still bearing traces of the rosy flush that had suffused her face for much of the evening. He lowered himself gently onto the edge of the bed, drinking in her loveliness. Anne, feeling the mattress move, set aside the bag and looked up at Gilbert. His curls were framed by a ruddy glow from the candlelight and his eyes seemed almost black, as they gazed steadily towards her.

Anne shifted slightly, leaning towards him. Gilbert responded instantly, moving across the bed, meeting her lips with his, and pulling her into his embrace. Their kisses had a fervency that their sylvan trysts had not needed. Each mindful that they skirted beyond the edge of propriety as they lay alongside one another on the bed: lips, chest, thighs, knees, meeting with explosive touches.

Gilbert knew he should leave, and soon, but he could not let Anne go. He thrilled at her touch. Her fingers roved where his dared not, tracing a line down his spine and skimming the waistband of his trousers. There was a sharp tug and his shirt was pulled from his trousers and those bold fingers retraced their passage up his spine, this time with no barrier of cotton between Anne's skin and his. He shivered ecstatically, hardly able to comprehend what he was feeling, that Anne's hands were stroking his back, that it was Anne's skin setting his own aflame.

Gilbert hands travelled all over Anne's back, tracing the outline of her body, before coming to rest in her thigh. He shifted a little, parting Anne's knees with his. Anne gasped and kissed him more fervently than ever, arching her back and pressing her body closer to him. Gilbert grasped her tightly, every part of him yearning to belong to her completely.

Anne's hands raked down his shirt front, popping open buttons as they travelled. As the final button popped, Gilbert's shirt fell open. Anne pulled away from him as she slipped his shirt from his shoulders. She gazed at him, glorying in the sight of his naked flesh. She traced the line of soft down from his chest to his navel, fingers hovering uncertainly above his waistband, before encircling his waist and splaying across his back once more.

Gilbert shivered at her audacious touch. He pulled her close, glorying in the feel of her breasts pressed to his chest, wishing the layers of clothing between them could be got rid of as easily as his shirt.

A creak on the floorboards above them brought them both swiftly and suddenly to their senses. They stared at each other in confusion:

"I must..."

"You'd better..."

"Go" they finished in regretful unison.

Gilbert, knowing the full cost of his being discover thus unattired in Anne's room, got swiftly off the bed, thinking quickly about how he could leave unobtrusively. He dropped a final swift, searing kiss on Anne's slightly swollen lips and whispered, "I must leave, my darling. Lay there and think of me lying above you. Think of me tonight, as I will think of you".

With that his pulled up the sash and climbed out through the window, dropping quietly into the veranda below. He looked at the kitchen door. No, that was locked earlier, and he would still need to run the gauntlet of the stairs and past his parents' room to get to his own. Gilbert looked hastily around and spotted the beech tree adjacent to the house, which had been a constant ally in youthful misdeeds. He jumped off the veranda and climbed straight up the tree, with a dexterity that belied his earlier weariness. The branch that sat conveniently next to his window seemed far more fragile than he remembered, but his childhood friend remained staunch and he made it through the window into his own bedroom, just in time to hear his mother tapping at his door calling anxiously,

"Gilbert, are you ok? I didn't hear you come up the stairs."

"I'm fine mother," he called, scrambling into bed, "I came up quietly as I didn't want to disturb you." Well that much was true, he thought to himself, wryly. He pulled the bedclothes to his chin and, as his mother's face appeared around the door frame, was able to feign enough sleepiness to wish her a yawning goodnight.

Below him, Anne, removing her remaining garments with trembling fingers, eschewed the meticulously folded nightgown. She luxuriated briefly in her own nakedness before slipping the recently acquired prize over her head. Then she slid between the sheets, wrapping Gilbert's shirt around her, as surely as his arms had been, minutes earlier.

Sleep, she was sure, would be impossible. But it did come eventually; and the dreams of both were filled with the time to come when the roof they shared would be their own.


	7. Uncommon life

_(AN: Many thanks for all your wonderful reviews. This chapter is not what I intended, but these two can't seem to keep apart!)_

 **Chapter 7: uncommon life**

The soft morning sunlight crept up between the shutters, spreading dappled light over the cotton warp bedspread. Beneath this Anne Shirley flickered into wakefulness and stretched luxuriously. Her eyelid fluttered open and she gazed around her, momentarily disorientated by the unfamiliar surroundings.

This wasn't the east gable room at Green Gables. Anne pulled her hands back under the bed clothes and touched the edge of her nightdress, which seemed so much shorter than usual. A deep blush rose to her face. This wasn't her room and this wasn't her nightdress. Anne recollected the events of the previous evening that had led to her sleeping in Mr and Mrs Blythe's spare room, wearing nothing but their son's shirt!

Anne gathered the loose folds of the shirt front in her hand and brought it towards her face. She inhaled deeply, savouring the scent of Gilbert that still clung to the fabric. What had she done? She had raced over here at dusk, worried that Gilbert might be ill, and ended by keeping him from his bed, in a scandalous fashion, and had been the cause of him having to leap out through the window and make ground to safety of his own room by unknown means. That's always supposing he had got back. What if he had been discovered by one of his parents, roaming around the garden shirtless? How on earth could he explain that away? What would his mother think of her? Oh, why, why, why couldn't she have kept her hands to herself?

She inhaled again, running the soft cotton through her fingers, retracing in her mind the events that had delivered her this prize. The first button she had unfastened hesitantly, wondering if she dare take a glimpse of the flesh that her hands had been, so freely, exploring. She remembered the thrill she felt as she exposed the triangle of tanned skin below his neck. Then, with more confidence the second button was opened, and kisses laid upon that triangle of skin, and a hint of soft down discovered. Then the third button... After which Anne had verily torn _through_ the remaining buttons and the shirt was discarded, exposing the whole of Gilbert's torso to her greedy touch and gaze.

Gilbert had always been tall, which was why, Anne supposed, she had expected him to have a somewhat sparer frame than he actually had. She had been quite taken aback by just how hard and muscular he was. She ran her hands up her arms, gripping her slight biceps. What a contrast with Gilbert's arms, how firm they were and broad. Anne trembled delightedly as she recalled the way Gilbert had gasped when she gripped his arms in just the same way as she gripped her own now. Then her fingers had roved down his chest... Anne fingers traced the same line down her own chest, contrasting her softness with Gilbert's firmness, her own touch substituting for the caresses she wished Gilbert could give her.

Gilbert had exhorted her think of him, before he had fled; no instruction had been easier to obey! She could think of little else. He dominated her thoughts; every day she woke counting the minutes till she could next see him; every night she dreamed of his touch, and yearned, yearned, yearned for more.

Anne climbed out of bed and walked over to the window, from where Gilbert had made his hasty retreat. The glimpses of pale sunlight slipping through the shutters indicated that the dawn was still new. But, mindful of the fact that it would be easiest all round if she returned to Green Gables before Mrs Lynde was abroad, Anne knew it was time to get up. She loosened her hair from its overnight braid and opened the shutters.

Gilbert leaned against the old beech tree, sat with his head tilted up slightly, his face pointing towards the emerging sunlight. He had slept fitfully, achingly conscious of Anne, sleeping in the room below him. He had awoken shortly before first light and dressed hastily, creeping quietly down the stairs and slipping outside. There he took up vigil outside Anne's window, taking a particular delight in watching over his beloved's sleep, whilst he waited for the dawn. He had been rewarded with all the emergent beauty of a midsummer sunrise; a dewy, fresh, yellow light creeping over the lush fields, accompanied by a growing warmth, which betokened the promise of heat to come. As he basked in the verdant glow of the new day, he glanced towards the spare room window, and saw that the shutters were being slowly drawn back.

He gasped, as he beheld a new vision of loveliness. There, wreathed in morning sunshine, stood Anne; her hair cascading about her shoulders in auburn waves, glinting fierily. He could see the outline of her slender frame through the thin fabric of her night gown, the soft swell of breast, slim hip and round thigh. Then he gasped again; the garment she worn finished at mid-thigh, exposing a length of naked leg to his gaze. He swallowed and ran his palms nervously up his thighs. So that's what had happened to his shirt!

Anne shook her hair out and combed her fingers through her long tress, momentarily oblivious to Gilbert's abstracted stare, as she drank in the dewy loveliness of the new day. Then she spotted him, flushing rosily as her eyes met his.

Gilbert shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to assume an air of nonchalance.

"Good morning Anne," he said with a smile, "sleep well?"

He rose slowly to his feet and sauntered as casually as he could over to the window.

"Gilbert!" Cried Anne, "what in heck are you doing there?"

"Waiting for my lady to awake," he said, with a wink, "keeping a faithful vigil at your window through the long, lonely night."

"Gilbert, be sensible," admonished Anne, perching herself on the window ledge and leaning through the sash to great him, "you surely haven't been sat out there all night?"

Gilbert bent down and dropped a brief kiss on her lips. "No my darling," he murmured, "but I wanted to be the first person to bid you good morning." His lips claimed hers for a second, lingering, kiss. "Good morning, Anne."

"Good morning to you too Gil," laughed Anne, returning his kisses with enthusiasm.

Gilbert reached through the window and ran his hand up Anne's arm and along her collarbone. The top two buttons if the shirt Anne wore were undone; his fingers began to trace a line down the triangle of soft skin thus exposed, into the hollow between her breasts. Then he seemed to recollect himself and pulled his hand back, taking the fabric of the shirt between his fingers.

"Nice shirt," he murmured.

Anne exhaled and blushed and looked suddenly self-conscious. "Oh, yes, sorry," she muttered "well, you left it behind! And you told me to think of you, this seemed like a good way of ensuring I would!" Anne smiled shyly up at Gil before continuing, "This was the best substitute for you that I could find."

Gilbert dropped a soft kiss onto Anne's collarbone and murmured quietly, "lucky shirt." He then pulled himself away and continued briskly, "but it wouldn't do for anyone else to see your choice of night wear, I think you'd better shut that window, Anne, and send me away."

"In a moment," returned Anne, pulling Gilbert towards her, as she unfastened a third button, "before you go, just do that again."

Gilbert glanced hastily around and then reapplied his lips to Anne's collarbone, this time he continued to drop a trail of little kisses down her chest and along the smooth curve of her breast. He stopped as he reached the barrier of cotton, seemingly to consider whether to open up the shirt even more, or keep within the existing boundary. He gazed at Anne's partially exposed skin, at the smooth rounded whiteness; through the thin white fabric of his shirt he could see the pink pinnacle of her breast, growing ever tauter with every touch. The temptation was irresistible. He heard Anne gasp as he gathered both white cotton and pink nipple into his mouth and sucked gently.

Gilbert glanced up at Anne, her grey eyes were wider and more luminous than ever. "Gil?" she whispered, her tone a combination of shock, awe, desire and fear.

Gilbert kissed her open lips, his palm stroking where his lips had been. "Sorry my darling," he murmured, "the temptation was irresistible." He moved his other hand to stroke her shoulder. "Why Anne, you're shivering?"

"Oh, but it's such a nice, thrilly, kind of shiver," Anne responded, with an ecstatic smile.

"Gilbert!"

A call came from the kitchen door. Anne and Gilbert looked at one another in horror and leapt apart. Anne swiftly removed from the window ledge and dropped the sash, retreating swiftly back into the bedroom; Gilbert raced back to resume his former position under the tree. It was here that Sarah Blythe discovered him, moments later.

"Gilbert, what are you doing loitering out here?" she admonished, "You shouldn't be sitting on that damp ground, come inside at once and get your breakfast."

For the second time that morning, Gilbert arose, shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered over to the veranda, assuming a nonchalance he was far from feeling.

"I'm coming, Mother," he sighed. He glanced briefly, longingly, towards Anne's closed window, before following his mother to the breakfast table.

In the spare room, Anne lay on the bed, holding her breast, with its firm, rosy peak, still reeling from Gilbert's ministrations. She felt such a thrill of joy run over her! How could she allow Gilbert to do such a thing? Oh how beautiful, how wicked, how delightful, how wrong! She lay for a few minutes longer before recalling that the house was awake and she really needed to get up and dressed. She moved off the bed, making ready to don her clothes.

"Oh, Anne Shirley" she remarked to herself, as she sat on the edge of the bed, preparing to pull on her stockings, "how can you be expected to return to common life after that?"

 _(AN: how indeed?! But I never intended this to turn so T-ish, so I fear they must. I feel a spot of Mrs Lynde coming on again...)_


	8. A Blessing and a Gift

**Chapter 8: A Blessing and a Gift**

Anne stepped out into the hall, closing the door softly behind her. She paused for a minute, smoothing down her hair and adjusting her skirt waist rather awkwardly. The mirror on the bureau had showed her she looked presentable, but she was at some pains to assure herself that she had dressed with as much neatness and propriety as she could muster, under the circumstances.

Taking a deep breath, she walked purposefully down the hall into the kitchen, from whence the sounds of breakfast preparation emanated. She paused outside the door, unsure whether to knock or just walk straight in.

"Oh, pull yourself together, Anne Shirley," she admonished, strictly and silently, "it can only be Mrs Blythe in there, whom you have met and spoken with on so many occasions; this is merely another such occasion."

Quelling the mischievous voice at the back of her mind, that told her that she had never met Gilbert's mother on an occasion such as this, she opened the door and strode confidently in.

She faltered, in the doorway, at the sight which greeted her. There, at the kitchen table, sat Gilbert. Solemnly spooning up porridge, looking for all the world like a recalcitrant school boy, rather than the exciting, and rather daring, lover he had been not half an hour earlier. Anne flushed at the recollection, hoping that Mrs Blythe, currently engaged in lifting the kettle off the stove, couldn't read her disordered thoughts. Gilbert, who apparently had, met her glance and winked slyly. Anne flushed again. Drat that boy, everything he did seemed to make her body tingle and her cheeks colour.

"Come on in, Anne." called Mrs Blythe, filling the teapot, before returning the kettle to the stovetop. "Take a seat. Would you like some porridge?"

"Oh, just a cup of tea, thank you Mrs Blythe," stammered Anne, trying to sound as normal as she could, "I probably ought to be getting back home before long."

"No need to rush, dear," returned Mrs Blythe, "Marilla knows where you are."

But Rachel Lynde doesn't, thought Anne to herself, and that's how I would like it to stay! She tried to hint as much to Mrs Blythe, suggesting that she got home before it became generally known that she had stayed over, with Gilbert in the house.

"There's only one way things become 'generally known' in Avonlea!" retorted Mrs Blythe, unexpectedly. "Don't you give Rachel Lynde another thought. If I approve of you being here," Sarah Blythe conveniently discounted her own prior reservation, in order to strengthen her argument, "and Marilla approves of you being here, what business is it of Rachel Lynde, and anyone else in Avonlea, for that matter? No, you'll stay here and eat your breakfast. We don't have guests in this house going hungry, and you'll need a bit of something to get you set up for the day."

Anne agreed meekly, abashed by this sudden flood of invective.

"Have you finished, Gilbert, dear?" asked Mrs Blythe, addressing herself to her son, and whipping away his empty dish before he had time to answer. "Then off you go and give your Pa a hand with the milking, you can walk Anne back to Green Gables once you're done."

Accepting his dismissal, Gilbert rose from his seat and sauntered towards the door. Passing Anne's chair whilst Mrs Blythe's attention was directed once more towards the porridge pot, he laid his hands on her shoulders and bent to whisper in her ear: "I rather thought you'd already had a little something to set you up for the day!" With that, he trailed a wicked finger up her neck and fondled her earlobe, dropped a swift kiss on the nape of her neck and then strode to the door, whistling nonchalantly, leaving a blushing and befuddled Anne in his wake.

"Gilbert, behave!" admonished Sarah Blythe, sharply.

Anne looked up, aghast. Surely Gilbert's mother hadn't witnessed that particular interchange?

"You know I don't like you whistling in the house," called Mrs Blythe, to Gilbert's retreating back.

Anne relaxed and addressed herself to the bowl of porridge Mrs Blythe had placed before her.

"Sorry mother!" Gilbert's voice floated in from the hall.

"He's a good boy on the whole," said Mrs Blythe, fondly, "but still a little too prone to mischief. I'm afraid that's a tendency he will probably never grow out of."

"Oh, but I wouldn't want him to." Interposed Anne, before reflecting on the implications of what she had said and blushing rosily once again. "Well...I mean, Gilbert has always had such a sense of fun, its part of what makes him so very Gilbert-y."

Mrs Blythe twinkled down at her, "and we both wouldn't want him to be any less Gilbert-y than he is, would we, Anne dear?"

"Oh no," replied Anne, enthusiastically, thankful that Mrs Blythe had chosen to grasp her meaning, "I haven't always appreciated Gilbert's particular brand of mischief," she recollected their first, disastrous, meeting, "but I would hate him to lose it entirely."

Anne reapplied herself to her porridge for some minutes, before starting up again. "Mrs Blythe," she began, somewhat tentatively, I am so very sorry for turning up on your doorstep unannounced at such a late hour last night. I've put you to a deal of trouble; I didn't mean to be so thoughtless."

Sarah Blythe waved Anne's concerns aside. "Don't give it another thought, Anne," she said, with a smile, "its only natural you should be worried, Lord knows, I just can't stop being so, for all Gilbert protests. He just waves my concerns aside so nicely: 'yes mother, of course mother, I'll bear that in mind mother,' he says, before heading off to do exactly as he planned all along." She sighed and continued, "I think maybe you've a better chance of getting him to mind you, dear."

Anne blushed and stammered, "Well, I'm not sure about that, Mrs Blythe, Gilbert can be awfully determined once he sets his mind on a thing."

"And I'm sure you can be too." Returned Mrs Blythe with a twinkle, "it's never a good thing for a man to be getting his own way all the time."

"Oh I am sure he won't, Mrs Blythe, you can count on me for that! It's just that it's not often he sets his mind on anything I don't approve of." Anne blushed again, as she thought of all that Gilbert had done recently that she probably ought to have disapproved of.

"Well, as long as you can keep him from working himself into the ground, then you'll please me." Said Mrs Blythe. "I want him having a proper vacation this summer." Anne flushed again, in the recollection of the heady events that followed her arrival last evening, she had forgotten the reason she had dashed over here in the first place!

"Oh yes, I'm sure he will," murmured Anne, attempting to hide her blushes by keeping her face directed towards her porridge.

"You know he will mind you, my dear, he's well-nigh crazy in love with you, always has been." Sarah Blythe sat down at the kitchen table and looked seriously at Anne, "I've known it since you first knocked him on the head!"

Anne, seeing the unspoken question in Gilbert's mother's anxious looking face, decided that frankness was called for. "And I love him," she said, softly, "just as much as he loves me. The only difference between us is that it took me much longer to realise. I've always loved him. No other boy ever made me so angry! And certainly no one could ever make me as happy as he does."

"He never told us, you know" said Mrs Blythe, quietly, "that he'd asked you, and you said no. But we guessed eventually. I hope you don't mind me asking Anne, but what changed your mind? We'd heard all about your Kingsport Beau, and then that didn't seem to work out..."

Again, Anne knew the question she needed to answer was the one Sarah Blythe couldn't ask. "I don't blame you for thinking me very foolish and fickle, or that I treated Gilbert very badly, I accuse myself of that very often. If I had not been such an idiotic, stubborn, deluded little fool, Gilbert and I could have been together years ago."

"I had an ideal vision of what love looked like, and couldn't see how my friendship with Gil could possibly fit that. When Gil first proposed, I was so angry with him for ruining our beautiful friendship. I thought I couldn't love him in that way, he was too much of a good chum for that. But I was so miserable after I said no and we didn't see each other again."

"And then I met Roy. He was the image of my romantic ideal. He showered me with flowers and poetry and I convinced myself that I had to be in love with him, because he fit my idea of what love was. So I worked hard at being happy with Roy, and I thought Gilbert was doing the same with Christine - and oh Mrs Blythe, I had no right to, but I _did not like_ that girl!"

Mrs Blythe smiled, "well, I don't think I had any right either, my dear, but I must confess I couldn't like the idea of Gilbert courting a girl who wasn't from the island."

Anne's heart gave a little leap at the realisation that Mrs Blythe evidently considered Anne as much an Islander as she did herself.

"That's just what Marilla thought of Roy, although she never said it, of course. Mrs Lynde said it for her though, fairly frequently!"

"Trust Rachel Lynde for that." sniffed Mrs Blythe. She took a sip of tea and leaned forward, expectantly.

Anne resumed her narrative. "Well then the poor boy proposed, with every expectation that I would say yes, and I just couldn't. Oh he was rich and handsome and well connected and romantic. Everything I should have wanted. But I knew that Roy didn't belong in my life, he didn't know me or understand me. I didn't love him. So I turned his proposal down."

At this, Sarah Blythe shoulders seemed to relax somewhat, as though a barely visible tension was released.

"And even then," continued Anne, "I didn't understand that there was already someone who belonged, had always belonged. I didn't realise until I came back from Echo Lodge and discovered he was so gravely ill. Then I knew I loved him. I had always loved him. I belonged to him, and he to me." Anne lifted her eyes to meet Sarah's. "It was agony to know I had no right to come to him, that my foolishness meant I had forfeited that right, and that he may leave this world never knowing how much I cared. I couldn't have lived with that. I couldn't have lived without him."

Anne dropped her head and a couple of fat tears landed on the table. She felt a work worn hand grasp hers and looked up to see Sarah looking at her through tear laden eyes.

"But he didn't die, Anne, God gave him back to us." Sarah rummaged for a handkerchief and applied it to Anne's face, then her own. "And I never saw anyone recover as quickly as that boy did once he got that letter saying that you weren't engaged; we never had any doubt if his intentions after that."

"I didn't!" said Anne with a shaky laugh, "he was friendly, but that was all. I was sure he must be in love with Christine and only saw me as a friend. And after all those years of insisting Gilbert was just a chum, suddenly that was not enough for me. I wanted his love"

"You can be sure you have that, Anne dear," said Sarah, quietly, "and you don't know what good it does me to be sure he has yours as well. You know what silly talk there can be around here at times. I don't like to give credence to gossip, but I was a little worried, knowing how you had refused Gilbert at college, that maybe you didn't love him like he loves you."

There was a pause, Sarah gazed over Anne's shoulder, looking out of the kitchen window, to the rustling branches of the orchard beyond, where the strawberry apples were beginning to ripen; "I wouldn't want for him to be pouring all his love into your marriage, knowing that there's a piece of your heart he could never touch."

Anne made to reassure her, but Sarah waved her fledgling protestations aside. "Oh, I know I don't need to worry my dear, I think I've known that for a while, but I just wanted to be sure, you see."

"Well, look at us," Sarah continued briskly, "what would Gilbert say if he came back now and found us weeping over things that never came to pass?"

"He'd tell you both not to be such geese" said Gilbert from the doorway. "Gratifying though it is to know you'll miss me when I'm gone, can you stop imaging that that is going to happen imminently?"

Sarah jumped up, half embarrassed to have been caught indulging in both sentiment and idleness.

"Just you be thankful, young man, that you have folks to worry about you!" she retorted, rising from her seat at the table and striding, purposefully, towards the hob, "Now, who's for tea, before we start on anything else?"

Tea drunk and goodbyes exchanged, Anne and Gilbert eventually set off down lane in the direction of Green Gables. In one hand Gilbert carried the small carpet bag that Marilla had hastily packed the previous evening; the other clasped Anne's hand, fingers interlaced. They walked in companionable silence for some time, before Gilbert, rather tentatively, began: "I hope my mother didn't cross examine you too closely, Anne?"

Anne, who had been mulling over Sarah Blythe's words, even as she breathed in the scent of the morning ferns around her, started slightly. "Oh no, of course not," she returned airily before meeting Gilbert's quizzical gaze and continuing, in a slightly more sincere tone, "well, perhaps a little, but she only asked what any mother would want to know."

"What was that?" asked Gilbert, mindful of his mother's tenacity when mining for information.

"She just wanted to be sure I really loved you" replied Anne, "quite understandable really, when you consider the shocking way I have treated you over the years."

"Well, she had no right to worry you," said Gilbert decidedly, "if I am happy, then that is all she needs to know."

"Oh, I think you mother is perfectly entitled to make sure that the woman she hands responsibility for your happiness to, will take that responsibility very seriously." Anne stopped and looked up at Gilbert, "you may know I love you, but your mother is, of necessity, unlikely to have the same opportunities to reassure herself on that head, that you do." With that, Anne proceeded to demonstrate, by kissing Gilbert deeply.

For some time, both the concerns of their elders, and the onward journey to Green Gables, were forgot, as Gilbert, dropping the bag he carried, enfolded Anne within his arms and returned her kiss with fervour.

It was some minutes before Gilbert, mindful of the object of their journey, and the fact that they were stood in the middle of a fairly well-worn path, pulled reluctantly away.

"If that is the way you intend to assure me of your affection, let me tell you now, I am a nervous, doubting creature, in constant need of reassurance!" said Gilbert, with a twinkle.

Anne laughed, "Then I will make it my business to assuage your doubt, on a daily basis! Oh Gilbert, how glorious it is to know I can kiss you every day, and the day after that, and the day after that! And we have a whole summer of kisses before us. Note," she continued, in a teasing tone "I do not mention the subsequent winter drought that looms thereafter. I have taken your lessons on that subject to heart."

"I am pleased to hear it," responded Gilbert, "let us look only on the future as it brings us happiness. I look forward" he continued slyly, "to a future where I am greeted by the vision I saw this morning, every morning."

Anne blushed, but leaned towards him and murmured huskily, "And I look forward to being wished good morning in that fashion, without interruption, every morning."

Gilbert felt that it would be inappropriate to respond with words, but instead caught Anne's lips with his, reprising their kiss. Eventually he pulled away and, picking up Anne's bag, said, with feeling, "I look forward to a future where I do not have to return you to your home, but can remain with you in our own home."

Anne slipped her arm around Gilbert's waist as she fell to step alongside him. Gilbert's arm wrapped around her shoulders, as her pulled her closer. "Oh, just think of it Gil, our own home of dreams," breathed Anne, rapturously. "It feels so much nearer, now."

They continued down the path to Green Gables, arms entwined, bodies pressed together so closely that walking became slow and awkward. But neither noticed the discomfort, both rapt with the vision of their joint future, when their lives, bodies and dreams would be offered to one another, as a blessing and a gift.

 _(AN: apologies for the longer than expected gap between updates, life offline has been a bit busy of late. I had expected Mrs Lynde to pass judgement in this chapter, but Sarah Blythe asserted herself quite strongly and edged her out. But I expect it's only a temporary absence. Thank you all for you kind words. I have bowed to the inevitable and changed the rating on this story. I think there may be a few more T-ish episodes before we get to the end of the summer!_

 _This was a pretty tricky chapter to get finished. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the pace (both in narrative and production) again fairly soon)._


	9. Dragon Slaying

**Chapter 9: Dragon Slaying**

 _(AN: Thank you all for your reviews. It is getting harder to find time to write at the moment and, possibly because of_ _that, I am much less fluent when I do write. Which is my way of letting you know things are likely to slow up for a while. This was another chapter that felt a bit difficult to write in parts. Having created space for Rachel Lynde to expound, she became curiously reticent. This was eventually overcome though. Your thoughts on how successfully, or not, most welcome._

The soft morning sunlight crept up between the shutters, spreading dappled light over the cotton warp bedspread. Beneath this Mrs Rachel Lynde, sleeping the sleep of the just and weary, grunted and murmured, sighed a little, then rolled over, pulling the bedspread a little closer under her chin, before letting out a gentle snore.

The sun rose a little higher and the sunlight crept up the bedspread, illuminating the sleeping, weathered, features of Avonlea's foremost matriarch. Beneath the prize-winning Apple leaf spread, Mrs Rachel Lynde rolled into wakefulness, yawning widely. Her eyelids creaked open, she sat up and looked around, momentarily disorientated by her surroundings.

"Thomas?" She asked, reaching out to the left side of the bed, a space Thomas Lynde had clung to, precariously, throughout his 38 years of marriage. The sleep was beginning to drift away from Rachel's befogged brain and she realised where she was. Thomas had been dead these past 5 years or so, and she was in the spare bedroom at Green Gables. Although it had ceased to be the Spare Room for the bulk of those five years; Mrs Rachel Lynde, through length of occupancy and depth of fellow feeling, belonging firmly to the eclectic family of permanent, and semi-permanent, residents of Green Gables.

Rachel Lynde blinked herself into full consciousness, impatient of the fog that still lingered around her sleep-soaked mind. Of course, she recalled now the sick headache, that had forced her to retire early, and most likely also accounted for her uncharacteristic lack of sentience this morning. She sat up, gingerly, anticipating a return of the pain that had so prostrated her the previous evening. It seemed that the night's repose had done it's work, however and, once assured that her temporary incapacity was over, Mrs Rachel Lynde threw back the covers and swung herself out of bed, anxious to begin the day. Goodness only knew what affairs of import may have been unfolding at Green Gables, without the benefit of her supervision and guidance.

It was customary for both Green Gables housekeepers to breakfast independently, in their own kitchens. Entry in their respective domestic strongholds was by invitation only and each guest acknowledged the supremacy of the host in all matters of hospitality and domestic decision-making. This was an agreement more frequently adhered to by Marilla than Mrs Rachel, but no breach had, as yet, been so significant as to permanently damage the overall domestic harmony within the homestead.

Mrs Lynde, having assured herself that all was as orderly as could be expected of one of Avonlea's foremost housekeepers, set down her broom and poured herself a cup of strong tea. She had not been able to set her bread the previous evening, but Marilla had supplied that for her. Mrs Rachel had not popped the risen dough straight into her newly lit oven, as was her usual custom, but had knocked it back and left it for a final proving, thereby ensuring it would rise on account of her own efforts, not Marilla's. Consequently the morning was unusually far advanced before Mrs Lynde had broken her fast and was able to emerge from her quarters and take up her position on the porch, armed with the knitting that ensured any quiet moments were not idle.

Thus it was that Mrs Rachel Lynde had been not five minutes on the Green Gables porch, positioned where she might survey any traffic – be that pedestrian, vehicular, equine or bovine – when she spotted a couple walking slowly up the lane. Mrs Rachel's eyesight was not as sharp as it had been, but it required little effort to discern that the couple were, indeed, Anne and Gilbert. Furthermore, any observer, with unimpaired powers of sight, would be able to make out that this couple had their arms wrapped about one another, entwined so closely it was difficult to make out where one ended and the other began. Additionally, any observer who subscribed to strict public morals, and took personal responsibility for ensuring that these morals were adhered to, by every other resident of the settlement over which she presided, would be – rightly – shocked and indignant at such unfettered displays of affection in the public domain.

Mrs Rachel Lynde was such an observer. She rose to her feet and moved to the front door, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the miscreants walking up the lane.

"Marilla Cuthbert!" she called, in the direction of the Green Gables kitchen, "have you seen this?"

Marilla emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel and sighing. "Good morning Rachel," she said, "I trust you are feeling better this morning."

"Oh, there's nothing wrong with me, Marilla," snapped Mrs Rachel, impatiently, "but come here and take a look at this pair, why you couldn't fit a cigarette paper between them! Really, that is no way for them to comport themselves in public. Anne ought to be more mindful of her position, and so should Gilbert! They ought to be leading society, not setting it up by its ears."

"Oh Rachel, you really do make too much of it, I fail to see what is so shocking in walking together. Nor do I know what 'position' they have to be mindful of."

"Well, _Principal Shirley_ ought not give fuel to the gossips, she has only just won over those Pringles, you know, and you can be sure what happens in Avonlea will be reported in Summerside." Responded Mrs Lynde, energetically, "and as for not seeing what is so shocking, Marilla Cuthbert, just take a look over the right now."

This Marilla duly did. The sight that met her, stubbornly unaffronted, gaze was Gilbert and Anne, paused on their walk, and now wrapped in an, increasingly passionate, embrace. Marilla sighed and wished, inwardly, that the pair would be a little more circumspect; but to admit as much to Rachel Lynde would be interpreted as complicity with everything that lady might possibly have to say on the subject, now and ever after. So Marilla merely said, "The lane is very quiet, particularly at this time of day".

"Quiet, fiddlesticks!" retorted Mrs Rachel. "Why, Mr Harrison could be along at any moment, taking his stock back to pasture. Besides, that isn't the point. They ought not be carrying on like that on a public road, it ain't decent, that's what!"

Marilla, knowing that argument was futile, ceased to offer any. But she was mightily relieved when the embrace came to an end, and the pair under scrutiny resumed their walk. Mrs Lynde, taking silence for acquiescence, continued to monitor the approaching couple.

"Marilla," she began, in ominous tones, "what is Gilbert Blythe carrying? Why, I believe that is Anne's carpet bag, the one she uses when she comes home for the weekend. Why would Gilbert be carrying Anne's bag on a morning walk?" Mrs Lynde fixed a stern gaze upon Marilla, who coloured slightly.

"Marilla Cuthbert!" Exclaimed Mrs Rachel, that girl has _stayed the night_ with the Blythes and you knew about it? You condoned this?" Marilla cursed Rachel Lynde's uncanny knack for uncovering circumstances, that those subject to her investigation would rather remained unnoticed. It was a skill Marilla had often seen practised on other, potentially errant, inhabitants of Avonlea; where Mrs Lynde would deduce from the slim evidence before her, make a singularly prescient guess, and have that guess confirmed, by the betraying consciousness displayed by the subject under scrutiny.

"It was very late when she went over last night, she was a little worried for Gilbert's health, and the Blythes didn't want her wandering home alone in the dark on a moonless night. So they offered to put her up for the night. John Blythe came to tell me, almost as soon as she arrived at his place. So I packed her overnight things, as it's always better to sleep in your own nightclothes, rather than being obliged to borrow from your hosts." Marilla completed her speech a little breathlessly, anxious to explain herself to Rachel and yet irritated with herself for feeling that she must.

"Well, I wonder that you would let her go in the first place, Marilla. I don't imagine that Sarah Blythe was particularly pleased about it, either. The Blythes are not great entertainers - the Blythe connection is very small - it's a wonder if Sarah even had the spare room made up! But I dare say Anne will be able to tell us." Mrs Rachel momentarily laid aside her outraged morals to speculate on Mrs Blythes domestic capabilities, a subject upon which, even after 25 years of careful prying, Mrs Lynde did not feel herself sufficiently informed.

"Rachel Lynde," snapped Marilla, recovering her lost equilibrium, " I am sure Sarah Blythe is more than capable of hosting an unexpected guest, I am also sure that she would permit no impropriety in her house, and I am also sure that, had Gilbert been as ill as Anne feared, you would have been the first person hastening her over to his side. You know what she was like that night we thought he was dying."

Mrs Lynde, recollecting that awful night and the pale, silent terror that had gripped Anne, begrudgingly conceded the point. "Well, possibly," she sniffed, "but it seems a fairly reckless way to behave when Anne couldn't have known that he was ill. Besides," she continued, nodding towards Gilbert, who was walking up the path towards them, hand in hand with Anne, "he looks as fit as a flea to me".

Gilbert, who had caught the end of Mrs Lynde's pronouncement, grinned and cast a swift glance across at Anne, whose colour was already heightened. He slowed his walk, limping slightly, and let out a hollow cough. Anne looked at him in surprise and some alarm. Gilbert winked at her, his eyes dancing with mischief, before dropping the bag and saying, in a breathless voice, "oh Anne, I'm awful sorry to have taken so long to walk you over, but I think I must sit down again."

"Of course Gilbert," said Anne, readily, still rather puzzled by his unexpected show of weakness. "Come and take a seat." Anne made to lead Gilbert to the porch swing but, following a sharp tug in that direction, escorted him to the seat next to Mrs Lynde. Gilbert sat down heavily and immediately set off another bout of coughing. "Hello Mrs Lynde, Marilla," he gasped, between coughs. "How are you both?"

"Quite well, thank you," returned Marilla, dryly. "Much better than you appear to be, I hope you are not feeling as sick as you sound."

"Oh, I'm fine, just a slight congestion," said Gilbert, with an over-studied air of nonchalance. "And how are you, Mrs Lynde?"

Mrs Lŷnde eyed him, askance. "Are you sure you are fine?" She asked with some scepticism, you don't sound at all well."

Gilbert let out another round of thunderous coughing, before continuing, with a weak smile, "I dare say I will bear up, Mrs Lynde, I've a strong constitution; but I won't deny, I've been tired and achy these past few days and this cough is pretty persistent. Dr Bentley says there have been a couple of cases of typhus out East Grafton way, and that's been enough to scare my mother." Gilbert snuck a quick glance sideways at Mrs Lynde, to assess how his tale was received.

Mrs Rachel Lynde was torn between attempting to assess the severity of Gilbert's illness, with weighing up the probability of an epidemic disease breaking out within 10 miles of Avonlea and she, Rachel Lynde, not being aware of it. She supposed that perhaps Gilbert's status as a medical student - he was known to have spent time with both medical practitioners within easy range of Avonlea during his vacations - may put him in a privileged position when it came to receiving news of a medical nature.

"I hope there is no risk of typhus!" she exclaimed, "Gilbert Blythe, you are not wandering around the countryside spreading infection, as you? You should know better!"

"Oh there is no fear of that", Gilbert assured her, fearing he may have over egged his pudding slightly with that little aside, and fearing an attack on that weak front. "It was just my mother being absurd; I've just got a slight summer cold."

"Well, I do wonder that you mother countenanced Anne staying the night, when she had such concerns about possible infection. I would have expected her to be more mindful of the health of the community," admonished Mrs Lynde. "I would have counselled against it, most strongly, had I known. I wouldn't want Anne exposed to unnecessary contagion." Mrs Lynde fixed her firm stare on Gilbert. "Nor would you, would you Gilbert?"

Gilbert, feeling that a tactical withdrawal was called for at this point, murmured his concurrence.

Mrs Lynde continued her attack. "And, if you don't want to continue making yourself ill, then you'd better cease these wanderings all over the countryside at all times of day and night. There's no wonder you are exhausted, what with all the scampering about you two do."

Gilbert attempted to object, but Rachel Lynde was in full flight now, and would brook no interruptions. "The problem with you and Anne is that you are far too energetic – roaming all over the place, finding nooks and crannies that no one else visits. You shouldn't be straying so far from the beaten track."

"You'll be needing some time to rest and recover, Gilbert." Mrs Lynde decreed, "I am sure Anne won't be expecting you to drag yourself out to Green Gables tonight. And then you ought to think about more restful ways to spend your time together. Maybe you could manage a ride out in the buggy to White Sands, or a row on Barry's pond." Mrs Lynde's choice of approved venues for courting couples appeared to be chosen primarily for their sizable volumes of pedestrian traffic. Rachel Lynde was a great believer in the power of the public gaze, to prevent impropriety.

"Excellent suggestions, both of them." Replied Gilbert, gravely, his immediate agreement stemming Mrs Lynde's tide of eloquence somewhat. "And I agree whole-heartedly, I must not be continuing to visit here in the evenings, particularly when I am working in the day. I promise you, I won't combine the two activities for the rest of the summer."

"It has been delightful to talk to you this morning, as it always is, Mrs Lynde, but I was due at Mr Andrew's place some time ago, so I'd best be on my way now." Gilbert rose from his seat, with a little more energy than he had taken it with. Once on his feet, he broke into coughs again and said, between hacks, "Anne, could I just get a glass of water before I set off."

Anne led Gilbert into the kitchen, under Mrs Lynde's complacent gaze. Marilla, followed them, primarily to prevent Mrs Lynde doing so. Once inside, Marilla picked up Anne's bag and said "I'll just pop this back up in your room, Anne. I hope that cough of yours gets better, Gilbert" Marilla lips twitched a little, "I expect it soon will be" she continued, before closing the door and heading up the stairs.

Left alone with Gilbert, Anne let out a huge sigh and asked "What on earth was all that about? What was all the coughing for? You never mentioned anything about typhus yesterday?"

"Humm, that might have been a mistake, I had forgotten that Rachel Lynde knows everything that happens on this Island." Gilbert reflected, thoughtfully. "However, I think it served its purpose."

"Which was?" asked Anne.

"You have made it safely past Rachel Lynde without once being interrogated about your overnight absence," replied Gilbert, with a grin. "I doubt even Sir Gawain himself could have bearded a fiercer lion in its den". He pulled Anne into his arms and kissed her tenderly. "I would slay dragons for you," he whispered, "You have no idea how wonderful it is for me to know I now have that right."

Anne, her heart singing with the joy known only to a woman who is adored, wrapped her arms around Gilbert's neck and pressed herself closer to him, kissing him deeply. "I love you Gilbert Blythe." She breathed. Then, pulling away with some effort, she continued. "You'd better get going. The lion is merely temporarily corralled, and you have a resignation to submit. Then go home and rest. I will come to see you after supper."

Gilbert dropped a final kiss on Anne's neck, before stepping quietly out of the kitchen door, in order to make his escape by way of the orchard and so avoid further questioning by Mrs Lynde, who remained stationed on the front porch.

Anne, watching him from the doorway, waved a final time, as Gilbert climbed over the orchard gate and then turned to walk back up the lane. Then she turned and wandered back inside, walking dreamily up the stairs to her little gable room. She reached into the bag that Marilla had placed on the bed, but had evidently not unpacked. Her groping hand found the desired object and she lay back on the bed, clutching to her chest her prize from the previous evening – Gilbert's shirt. She breathed in the scent of its owner, still faintly discernible and smiled enigmatically, replaying the events of the past 12 hours or so, over and over in her mind.

Half an hour later, Marilla, harried by Mrs Lynde into finding out where Anne had slunk off to, popped her head round the door of the East Gable room. There she saw Anne, curled up on her bed, fast asleep, and clutching a white shirt. Marilla smiled to herself and, pulling the door quietly shut, left Anne to her dreams.


	10. Letting go

**Chapter 10: Letting go...**

The late afternoon sunshine crept over the veranda of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse, illuminating a scene, repeated over and over again across that venerable island. A neat homestead; abutted by an orchard, dairy, kitchen garden and barn. Chickens scratched the ground outside their coop and the pig wallowed contentedly in her sty, basking in the mellow sunshine, whilst she slept off the effects of a hefty supper. From the kitchen, the sound of pots clattering and occasional, gentle, splashing, indicated that the household had partaken of their evening meal and the clean-up operation was in progress.

On the veranda lounged a young man, brown eyed and curly haired, dressed in the hard-wearing, thick cotton trousers and light shirt of the agricultural labourer. His attire and attitude marked him out as one of the many PEI farmers, or farm workers, that populated the island, form'd from this soil, and so forming it in return. His tanned face and arms bore testament to days spent out in the fields, labouring under a fierce, summer sun. The scorched 'V' branded across his neck and chest, visible where his negligently buttoned shirt gaped open, marking him as a son of the earth.

But a closer inspection showed that first impression to be incomplete. The dog-erred volume, laid casually down beside him, was not the stock, or seed, catalogue, which formed the evening reading for so many of his contemporaries; but a well-thumbed volume of poetry. His brown eyes did not droop under the weight of delve-driven fatigue, but sparkled eagerly and expectantly, as he glanced, frequently, down the dusty, red lane, keenly alert for any sign of movement on that horizon.

Gilbert Blythe was, to all outward appearances, cast firmly in the same Avonlea mould as his farming fellows:

"Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and

their parents the same"*

But he was not the same. His dreams had already carried him far beyond his native shore, as he exchanged the soil that was his birth right, for ivory halls, prizes and knowledge won. Then he had been part of an Avonlea vanguard, tasting the first fruits of higher education. Now he struck on alone, committing to three further years of study: cheap, temporary lodging and grinding, bloody, toil in wards and labs, far removed from the lush fields he gazed upon now.

Never had he regretted his ambition. Even as it took him further and further away from home and friends. Ever since he returned to Avonlea, after those three early years out West, he had grown accustomed to his contemporaries reaching life's milestones before him. Fifth reader, Queens, Redmond; he'd taken more years that than his companions to get there. Then, as his path converged from his school mates', he'd watched as they reached the more deeply satisfying goals of marriage, homes and fatherhood. So many of the fellows he had shared the little Avonlea school house with, were racing through life. Tonight, Gilbert felt, he had hardly got to the starting line.

Well, not quite, Gilbert reasoned to himself, smiling faintly. He knew where this new discontent came from. Until last September, he had been running a different race entirely. The prizes he sought were solely academic; of knowledge won and applied; ambition sought after and achieved. Then a career to forge; battling ignorance, disease and, the great destroyer, death itself, to be wrestled with. That ambition still burned. But, alongside it, searing and aching in its intensity, came the hope of a love shared, a home built, a fireside and a family.

It was a hope that had been suppressed for so long. Buried beneath the fear that the object of his love might never be his. For years, he had wrapped his love up in the more acceptable garb of friendship and took all the savour that could be found therein. Eventually, when he could hide it no longer, he had laid his hope bare. Following that awful, tear-soaked rejection, which left Gilbert feeling like he had taken the knife and twisted it through Anne, as much as she had pierced his own heart beyond mending, his dream was finally buried in the orchard at Patty's Place.

But last summer, when he had pulled himself weakly, blinkingly, back into life again, his fragile, buried, hope had been resurrected also. He remembered marvelling at the feel of the blood pounding through his veins, he was alive! And Anne wasn't going to marry Roy Gardner! He had reason to hope.

How tentative he had been, how anxious to protect his feeble heart, from another blow it might never recover from. As he reacquainted himself with life, and with Anne; hardly daring to reach out for the prize. He closed his eyes and sighed, replaying in his mind that beautiful September scene in Hester Grey's garden, when hope returned again and his happiness born.

It seemed that, no sooner had they discovered their joy in each other, and then they were pulled apart by the completing claims of ambition. And so began this curious state of suspense. Living their separate lives; pursuing their own independent goals; fighting their daily battles alone. Yet not alone; joined as they were by the remote intimacy of letters. Gilbert smiled again. He was bolder on paper than he had yet dared to be in the flesh and Anne... well Anne's pen had always been ready.

There was the rub. Seeing her, feeling her, touching her, tasting her. Spending an exquisite night sleeping, fitfully, above her. Every inch he took left his body aching for more. He wanted another night, and another; and a day and night, and another day and night, and so many days and nights and weeks and months; until he knew the original of all poems, the written and unwritten, the known and unknown. He had spent half a lifetime longing to be loved by Anne; never, in all that time, had he pulsed with the charge that surged through him now.

Almost, it was enough to make him want to kick aside the ambition that kept them apart. But he knew it wasn't so clear a choice. His dreams of Redmond, of becoming a doctor, were so closely bound up in his dreams of Anne. She was the one who, by dint of her own lofty ideals and visions, had jolted him out of his complacent coasting and sparked his desire to learn and grow, to amount to more than the yield of inherited fields. She was the first to know of his fledgling ambition. She sat alongside him on the journey to Redmond; a fellow soldier in the vanguard, as well as the girl he was fighting for.

He sighed again. The waiting and working would have to continue - he wanted it to continue. There were still battles to be faced, foes to be vanquished, trophies to be won and honest knowledge gained. And their castle in the air must be plucked and planted on solid ground, before it could be occupied and populated. Gilbert's smile widened into a grin at this delightful thought.

So preoccupied had he been, by his reverie, Gilbert had neglected his watchful scrutiny of the lane. He had, therefore, failed to spot the slim, grey-eyed, girl, gliding up the road, the sunlight glinting off her flaming hair. Anne, spotting his abstraction, had made her way up the path circumspectly, stepping gently onto the veranda and moving towards the seat where Gilbert loafed. She crept up behind his chair and, leaning over, dropped a swift kiss on his neck, whispering, "Where are you wandering to tonight, my love? May I come too?"

Gilbert jolted into consciousness, the simmering charge within him, ignited at her touch. He ran his hand up the arm Anne had wrapped around his neck, his fingers brushing under the fabric of her sleeve and rubbing the bare skin of her shoulder. "Where ever my dreams take me, Anne-est of Annes," he murmured, "you can be sure you are already there." He turned his head, so his lips could met hers for a kiss that began softly, but grew in its heat and urgency as each sensed the passion rising in the other.

"Anne?" whispered Gilbert, pulling away at last and twisting himself round in his chair so he could face her. "Come with me now. Don't ask where," he interposed, hastily, seeing the question form on her lips, "just come".

Anne smiled and kissed him. "Wither thou goest," she quoted, holding out a hand and pulling him to his feet, "I will go."* She pressed herself close to him and kissed him again. "I will follow where ever you lead, Gilbert."

Gilbert kissed her urgently and deeply. Then, taking her hand in his, led her off the veranda, through the orchard and into the pine wood behind. They rushed through the dark, shady depths, across the sunny, maple-lined, hollow, skirting the marshy edge of the haunted wood. Anne, did not pause to breathe in the musky, dew-edged, scent of the pines, or drink in the purple vistas beyond the maples, as was her usual custom on evening rambles. Gilbert even forswore the opportunity, afforded by the dark canopy, for stolen kisses and bark-marked embraces.

Anne tingled with expectancy, Gilbert's urgency charging her own, swelling, excitement. At last Gilbert stopped. Anne looked around her, at the encircling pines and beeches and the mossy fallen log at her feet. Then she looked up and saw the apple tree.

She ran her hand gently down the rough, knotted trunk; remembering how Gilbert had brought her here, five years previously, to resolve her doubts and discontent, and set her feet firmly on the path of their shared ambition. It had witnessed so many other trysts thereafter: sorrow, hopes, joy had all been shared. This was a place she rarely ventured alone; bound as it was to the remembrance of Gilbert, of all he was, had been, and was still to be.

She turned and leaned her back against the slender trunk, looking up into the branches, surveying the ripening fruit above. Gilbert's gaze followed Anne's. He reached up and grasped one of the lower branches, shaking it vigorously. Several small, unripe fruits fell from the tree.

"Surely they won't be ready yet?" asked Anne, picking one of the fallers up from the ground, "we'll need to wait a spell before they are fit to eat."

"They would be good enough now to prevent a man from staving," returned Gilbert, abstractedly surveying the fruit in her hands, "but taking some off, early in the season, allows those that remain on the branch to ripen more fully. Selected early picking usually makes the eventual harvest much fuller."*

"And what happens to the ones that drop now?" asked Anne, staring at the small, hard apple she held.

'Well, apples in the orchard that fall early are never fit for eating," said Gilbert, quietly, stepping closer to Anne and wrapping his hands around hers, and the fruit clasped therein. "You really have to wait for the harvest time before the fruit can be plucked and consumed in its entirety." Gilbert raised his eyes from Anne's hands to her face, briefly meeting her candid gaze, before dropping his again and continuing. "But the early pickings are generally stewed or jellied, in the many ways known to Avonlea housewives," he smiled and glanced quickly up at Anne again, "so that a hint of the fullness of the harvest to come can be tasted in advance."

"Some people," he continued, breathily, hardly sure if Anne could hear him above the roar of the blood rushing in his ears and the pounding of his heart, scarcely contained within his chest, "think that nothing should be made from that early crop, that unripe apples are a pale, sour, imitation of the real thing; but I've always thought that, treated the right way, there is plenty of sweetness to be found in them."

Gilbert traced a finger along Anne's lower lip, delicately, reverently. Anne tilted her head back, in invitation, yearning for more. Gilbert bent lower to plant a tantalisingly brief, kiss on the corner of Anne's mouth.

"And you know," continued Anne, slowly unbuttoning the first four buttons of Gilbert's shirt, and then running the smooth, hard, fruit along Gilbert's exposed neck and chest, "even though I may not be able to bite into the flesh of this Apple, and enjoy the full, luscious, taste of the ripe fruit, there is so much beauty in it to be enjoyed now." Her apple stopped at the next button of Gilbert's shirt. She replaced the hard pressure of the apple skin, with the soft pressure of her lips on Gilbert's chest.

Gilbert exhaled sharply and his hands encircled Anne's waist. The infinitesimal gap between them was closed as he leaned towards her, closer and closer, until the scented air was filled only with his breath and his chest brushed lightly, tantalisingly against hers. Anne quivered as he leaned in to kiss her, his hazel eyes almost black in their smoky intensity. At one time, to see him gazing at her with such frank, unfettered longing, would have left her nervous and confused. Now she thrilled at his gaze. She didn't blush, but met his eyes fearlessly, her own grey orbs darkening with desire.

"Anne?" whispered Gilbert, his lips hovering, fractionally, briefly, above hers.

Anne pressed her body closer to Gilbert's, every part of her charged with anticipation and aching for his touch. "Yes, Gil," she breathed, brushing his lips with hers, "yes." The apple dropped to the ground as she wound her arms around his neck, pulling him nearer and finally claiming his mouth with hers.

It seemed to Anne that there was nothing in that secluded corner of the wood, save her and Gilbert. They kissed hungrily, greedily, eager to explore and to taste. Anne's fingers resumed their earlier operations on Gilbert's shirt, leaving her hands free to rove across his firm skin. Gilbert, unfettered by thoughts of discovery, revelled in her touch, running kisses along her face, chin and neck.

The only element of their surroundings that obtruded to Anne's notice was the firm bark of the tree truck, scoring into her back as Gilbert leaned into her. She gasped as he lifted her off her feet; her knees parting, skirts shifting. She wrapped her legs around him, the hardness of the tree matched by Gil's firm body pressing closer and closer. Anne arched and urged, moving against Gilbert fervently, volts of awareness surging through her body.

Gilbert let out a strangled breath, abandoning the final vestige of self control, as he allowed his hands and mouth to explore unfettered, surrendering, at last, to the urge and urge and urge that surged within and around him. Glorying in vision of Anne, eyes closed, lips parted, desiring him, only him.

Anne, in a dream of escasty, knew not where she ended and the tree supporting her, began. She was the root, the branch and the bud, bursting into life; she was the air, the ground, the mossy floor; she was Gilbert, he was her. She was bursting with life, burning with sensation, tingling with joy. All at once, the joyous ache that had been building within her exploded and she clung to Gilbert, gasping and pulsating with heady, hectic sensation.

Anne looked up at the canopy of leaves above her, clasping a shuddering Gilbert to her breast, as she revelled in this new understanding of herself. A gurgle of laughter arose within her. Gilbert, looked at her in a mixture of awe and surprise. Then he slacken his grasp around her waist and his knees bucked beneath him, sending the pair of them sliding, giggling, to the floor.

As they lay, entwined, on the mossy carpet, in the shadow of the spreading boughs and ripening fruit, Anne, still full of tingling awareness and unstoppered laughter, propped herself up on one elbow and asked, of the prone and spent Gilbert, "what happened there?"

Gilbert, peering at the dim green canopy above, through partially closed eye-lids, murmured, in a tone of satisfaction and surprise, "I let go".

* _Walt Whitman, Song of Myself_

 _* Ruth 1:16_

 _* This element of apple propagation is, apparently, true. Everything else is purely conjecture._

 _(AN: I am a little pink and flustered right now, at the prospect of sending something as T-ish as this into the world. But Anne and I have been reading Whitman and, so it turns out, has Gilbert. The consequences were inevitable. I hope I got it right and would appreciate your opinions._

 _Thanks are always due to LMM, who planted the seeds I play with. This also seems an appropriate juncture to acknowledge the heavy debt to Katherine-with-a-K, whose additional narratives around this little tree, in the glorious Redmond Diaries, are now as canonical to me as Maud's original offering.)_


	11. Domestic Stratagems

**Chapter 11: Domestic Stratagems**

The morning sunshine crept, pale and sparkling, over the dew-drenched step of a smart looking Avonlea farm house. This was not the worn and crumbled stone of a venerable, aged veteran; witness to decades of work-worn footsteps, tramping to and from the fields. Nor was it a newly cut, newly installed, step, bristling with impertinent pride and knowing nothing yet of the joys and sorrows of lives lived around it. This was a step that had seen a little of life already. Newly acquired, if not newly built; that shone with the regular application of soap, by a proud housewife, for whom the joys of home-making had not yet dwindled, entirely, into drudgery.

Early as it was, the step had already borne the heavy tread of work boots, marching first to the barn and then, having relieved the little Jersey cow of her morning load, returning to the house; sloshing new milk in a pail, drops of which were absorbed by the little stone, during the carrier's rather careless journey to the kitchen.

Shortly afterwards, a new traveller attempted a traverse of the little step. Pudgy fingers reached tentatively over the porous stone, teetering on the border between the settled domesticity within and the enticing wilderness, of orchard and garden, without. After an undetected pause, plump knees joined the speculative hand on the step. There was a shuffle and a grunt, as knees were replaced by small feet, tiny toes curling and gripping the smooth surface. The little feet remained planted firmly on the stone for some moments; then one foot was lifted up: there was a wobble, then a thud, as feet were replaced by a plump, round, bottom on the stone step.

There was an exclamation from the kitchen and the sound of hurried footsteps. A slippered foot came to an abrupt halt, and hard-working, but well-preserved, hands reached down to scoop up the thwarted adventurer.

"Fred!" exclaimed the owner of those rescuing arms, in exasperated tones, "do try to remember to close the door behind you. You left it open, again, and little Fred almost fell down the step - again!"

The half hearted muttered defence, emanating from the kitchen regions, dried up abruptly as a wrathful Diana Wright, bearing a chunky armful of equally wrathful toddler, strode through the kitchen door.

"Sorry Di," murmured Fred Wright, "forgot." The erring husband reapplied himself once more to his breakfast; whilst his incensed wife wrestled his son and heir into a high chair, then attempted to get young Fred to show as much interest in his porridge as the elder Fred apparently had.

Small Fred, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at wriggling out of the straps that bound him into his chair, decided that, since escape was clearly unlikely to be possible from his current position, breakfast might not be such a bad idea after all. He swerved the proffered spoon, instead digging into the, now tepid, porridge with fat little hands, wiping the resultant plunder above, below and, occasionally, in his mouth.

"Oh, Fred!" sighed his long suffering mother, in benign frustration, "not another clean bib destroyed? There'll be none left before Monday, if you keeping soiling them at this rate." The errant diner bestowed a toothy grin on that lady who, taking advantage of the pause, _shovelled_ in a large spoonful of porridge, before returning the smile with rapturous interest.

"I'd better be off now, Di," murmured Fred, getting up from his seat, "got to make a start on breaking up the back pasture, I need to start planting next week."

"Oh, can you just finish off giving little Fred his porridge," begged Diana, "now he is trying to walk it's nearly impossible to get everything done and mind him at the same time, I just need to get these dishes rinsed, then I can be free to chase after him."

Fred grinned and took up the spoon, attempting to persuade his son that eating his breakfast was preferable to wearing it.

"I suppose Gilbert won't be coming to help with the summer planting after all," continued Diana, "Mother was talking to Mrs Blythe on Saturday, and she told her Gilbert wasn't going to be hiring out any more over the summer. Apparently the Blythes are real worried about his health. Mrs Lynde says that there's a risk of typhus, but when I mentioned it to Anne after church on Sunday, she just laughed, and didn't look a mite worried. I suppose, as he's going to be a doctor, she needs to get used to him running the risk of infection."

"You know Fred," continued Diana, reflectively, "I am so pleased that Anne and Gilbert are finally together, but it has made things a mite lonely this summer. I know Anne came over to visit as soon as she was back from Summerside, but since Gilbert got home, she's only been here that one time."

"Well, you know we ain't as handy for Green Gables here as you were at your folks' place," interjected Fred, reasonably.

"I know that," replied Diana, "and I don't expect her to be here when she could be with Gilbert, really I don't; I just can't imagine how horrid it must be to be engaged for all that time and hardly able to see one another."

"Must be pretty tough," agreed Fred, laconically, "a long engagement can sure be uncomfortable." He reddened and grinned at Diana, who blushed in response and flicked her dishcloth in his direction.

"Don't be silly, Fred," she admonished, "that's not what I meant! Although," she continued, "that's probably what most people are thinking. I met Josie Pye at the post office yesterday, that girl does not improve with age. She was saying such vicious things about Anne."

Diana replayed the uncomfortable scene in her mind. She had walked into Avonlea, pushing small Fred in his baby carriage, for which he was, admittedly, getting a little large now. Josie Pye had emerged from the Post Office and instantly exchanged insincere greetings.

"Oh, Diana Blythe, how lovely to see you. We don't often see you in town these days, tucked away as you are in your little domestic bubble." exclaimed Josie, pointedly, "and this must be little Fred. Not so little, is he? And such a red baby, are they supposed to be that colour?"

Josie surged on, whilst Diana spluttered and attempted to form a repost. "Just the image of his father as well. I suppose it won't be long before you'll be expecting the patter of little feet all over again?" asked Josie, with a pointed look at Diana's plump figure, which had altered remarkably little since baby Fred first made his bow to the world. "I always think awfully unwise of new wives to keep throwing out new babies every year or two, as soon as they are married. There is nothing more guaranteed to destroy a woman's looks like excessive child bearing. And nothing like children to destroy the romance in a relationship. It seems to me that the deterioration from bride to breeding sow happens mighty quickly nowadays."

"Well, it won't happen to me," responded Diana, haughtily, wishing she had the wit and vocabulary to best Josie Pye, "and it is clearly nothing you need concern yourself with, Josie Pye, since it looks mighty unlikely you'll be deteriorating into anything but an old maid!"

Diana's unwieldy thrust pounded against its mark, as Josie reddened angrily. She then fixed her most saccharine smile into place and resumed her attack on a new front. "I don't suppose you have seen much of that red-headed school ma'am you used to be friends with?" Josie continued, silkily. "I don't suppose she has time for her dumpy old friends now that she has finally got a man? Now she has got her hooks into him, Anne is evidently making sure that everyone knows that Gilbert Blythe is hers; she has been seen all over Avonlea, with her hands all over Gilbert Blythe! She's utterly shameless. But then, orphans from goodness knows where can't be expected to know how to behave. For all her fine education and superior notions, breeding shows itself. She clearly doesn't know how decent folks behave!"

"Anne Shirley is a whole lot decent-er than you'll ever be, Josie Pye!" cried Diana, indignantly.

Josie smirked, entirely unmoved by Diana's wrathful indignation. "Well, I'm not the one who is the talk of the town. How long are they supposed to be engaged for? Two more years? I hardly think they'll last that long, if that red-haired hussy carries on like she is doing!"

With that Parthian shot, Josie turned on her heel and marched off down the road, nose in the air, leaving a seething and gaping Diana staring after her.

Diana grimaced at the recollection. Even after years of practice, she had never yet learnt how to handle Josie Pye. Anne was so much better at shrugging off Josie's malice and staunching its venom. "I guess," continued Diana, gloomily, "the reason Josie Pye rankles so much is that there is generally a grain of truth hidden inside the nastiness she spouts. Anne has never much cared for public opinion and she can be a little indiscreet."

Fred grinned again, "don't you be worrying about Anne and Gil, Di-love," he said, soothingly, "Avonlea gossip has always been extra speculative as far as they are concerned, and you shouldn't let anything Josie Pye says get to you."

"I know dear," said Diana, "but Josie knows how to bite, and I have seen so little of Anne this summer, I hardly knew how to respond."

"Well, if you want to see more of Anne, that's easily fixed," said Fred, wiping small Fred's face, then rising from his chair, "why not ask her to come a stay for a couple of days. You can have a proper catch up then."

"That would be lovely, why didn't I think of that?" exclaimed Diana, "I can ask her at church this Sunday, if I don't see her before then. It would be lovely to spend some proper time together, and I'm sure Gilbert won't mind sparing her to us for a short while"

"I dare say not," said Fred, with a smile, as, paternal duty discharged, he rose from the table and headed towards the doorway and his acres beyond.

Diana didn't need to wait until Sunday to issue her invitation. Anne and Gilbert called in at the Wright farmhouse on their way home from a Saturday afternoon jaunt to Carmody. Anne joined Diana in the kitchen, for tea with the engaging Master Wright, with whom she was a firm favourite.

Anne was engaged in blowing raspberries on little Fred's stomach, sending that young gentleman into paroxysms of laughter, when Diana, rather hesitantly, broached the subject.

"Why, Diana, I would love to come for a visit." cried Anne, as soon as the plan was divulged. "I do miss having you nearby when I come home to Green Gables. You must let me be useful. I want to help you with your housekeeping and give this fine young fellow his bath and put him to bed. It will be so delightful to be a part of your little household for a while."

By the time Gilbert returned from the lower pasture, whence he had wandered, in search of Fred, it was settled between Anne and Diana that Anne would come over on Monday and stay until Thursday. Anne had devised several schemes for the alleviation of Diana's domestic labours, which Diana secretly doubted would come to fruition at all, but loved Anne for the plotting thereof. Diana had solemnly promised to have the spare room at its stateliest and sparest, in readiness for Anne's reception on Monday evening. The two girls were giggling with all the excited anticipation that had betokened Anne's first stay with Diana, when the promised night in the Spare Room had been thwarted by its unexpected occupation by Miss Josephine Barry.

Gilbert showed little surprise at, and expressed only approbation for, the proposal. Once farewells were exchanged, he handed Anne up into the buggy, then leapt into his seat, taking the reigns in one hand, the other draping, casually, around Anne's shoulder.

"Do you know what a relief it is to finally be able to drive with you like this, Miss Shirley?" he asked, with a wink, as they set off down the lane.

Anne laughed, as little consciously, as she thought of the many times in years past, when she had been driven home by Gilbert, convinced he was only her good chum, yet still persistently conscious of his proximity. Now she was achingly aware of his closeness, but also at liberty to nestle as closely to him as the public road would allow.

"Do you mind me staying with Diana for a few days, Gil? I have made such a fuss about keeping our summer scared to each other, it seems somewhat hypocritical of me to be making other plans."

Gilbert leaned over and planted a light kiss on her nose. "We belong to many other people as well, Anne. Keep an hour at twilight for me, and Diana, and little Fred, can have as much of you as they like. Besides, I have old friends to catch up with as well. I have been a stranger to Avonlea in the past few years. I need to reacquaint myself with its people as well as its places."

They exchanged speaking glances at this, each delightfully conscious of the way in which they had been reacquainting themselves with Avonlea's scared nooks in recent weeks. Anne, who was never as bold in the discussion, as she was in the act, blushed fiercely. Gilbert chuckled at her confusion, planting a swift kiss on her lips, and offering yet another prayer of thankfulness for the workings of a benign Providence, who had eventually decreed that he would be the man to forever evoke Anne Shirley's blushes!

That evening, whilst clearing away the supper dishes, Diana outlined her plans for Anne's visit. Fred surprised her considerably by suggesting that she'd better get the kitchen gable room prepared for guests.

"Don't be absurd, Fred," admonished the surprised Diana, "Anne will be sleeping in the spare room, of course, why would I want to put her in that poky little room?"

"Oh, we'll be expecting another guest as well," said Fred. Diana stared. It was unheard of for Fred to invite company to stay. Even more unheard of that he should do so without consulting Diana, and to do so knowing full well that they already had a guest to stay. Anne had once joked that the grandeur of the spare room would be more than an old maid like she could aspire to; but Anne, thankfully, was not going to be wasted in old maidenhood, and Diana was not going to relegate her bosom friend to the pokey apartment above the kitchen.

Oh, don't worry Di-love," said Fred, hurriedly, seeing the martial light gleaming in his wife's eye, "the kitchen gable will do nicely for my company. He isn't a bit precious." Fred grinned, before dropping his bombshell, "Gilbert is still planning on helping with the planting next week. He'll be over from Tuesday onwards. I think we can accommodate him, can't we Diana?"

 _(AN: thanks everyone for your super encouraging reviews. I was mightily worried that I may have got it wrong in the previous chapter, so to have so many of you say it felt right was jolly reassuring. I am especially pleased to have wrested FKAJ from her silence! And so happy to have ongoing support from those who read and review regularly. Your words are received and reflected upon with much gratitude. It is immensely satisfying that there are other Anne-girls out there who are enjoying this journey with me. Bertha, I was particularly stoked to hear that you think I have found my voice! It is wonderful to be taking these first steps at writing in such talented and supportive company. I love this little corner of t'interweb!_

 _Where to go next was something of a challenge, so I hope the direction I've stuck out in now is successful. As ever, opinions welcome. :-)_


	12. Dutiful Attendance

**Chapter 12: Dutiful Attendance**

The final Sunday of July dawned, sunlit and luminous. The summer sunshine moving swiftly from a pale, sun-washed, lemon, to bright, sunflower gold, as it shimmered, then blazed, the inhabitants of Avonlea into Sabbath wakefulness.

At Green Gables, Anne Shirley had met the sun in its first, bashful, incarnation of morning wakefulness, as the summer breeze flittered aside the muslin curtains at her open window, letting shards of the newborn day slip inside. Her thoughtful gaze had met the pale morn fluttering across her bedspread and, after a few moments of watchful contemplation of the sparkling, breeze-blown, dance of light, she pulled aside the quilt and strode to the window, pulling open the curtains and soaking up the warmth of the fledgling morning, in all its dewy freshness.

After several minutes rapturous communion with the dawn, Anne drew herself back into her gable room and dressed hastily, tip-toeing down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was halfway through setting the kitchen stove fire when Dora appeared and, after silently appraising Anne's progress through the task, withdrew, as quietly as she had arrived, and went to perform the same office upon Mrs Lynde's kitchen stove.

The owners of the Green Gables kitchens were the next occupants to meet the morning sun, though neither lady permitted its impudent rays to penetrate the fastness of their respective boudoirs until they were suitably clad in Sabbath raiment.

There was heat and fervour in the blaze of light that flooded through the grimly drawn curtains of Davy's room. There was a similar heat in Marilla's sharp words as she urged that young sinner to bestir himself. Davy groaned and blinked and pulled the bedclothes over his head, to shield himself from the dazzling glow of bright sunshine and the force of Marilla's invective.

As the inhabitants of Green Gables sat down to breakfast in a bright, sun-washed kitchen, so similar sabbath preparations were begun across Avonlea.

At the junction, between the Carmondy and Tory roads, stood Josiah Pye's prosperous looking farmhouse. The sun radiated through a first floor window, where sat Josie Pye, squinting into her mirror and critically appraising her face for a sign of wrinkles. Even though the light was as unforgiving as the room's occupant, Josie could detect no obvious signs of deterioration. But, she reflected bitterly, time was marching on and she probably ought to start making an effort to be agreeable to Charlie Sloane; if the rumours about his supposed engagement to a girl from Redmond being broken off, were true. Not that a Sloane was any great prize; but she was starting to find Rachel Lynde's remarks about the probable fate of the "over particular ones" especially grating. Failing that, there was always the prospect of moving out West for a spell. If it had worked for dumpy little Jane Andrews, Josie mused, how much more success would she, Josie Pye, who was twice as brilliant, and immeasurably more beautiful, than that mousy little nobody.

Josie peered closely at her face for a final time, patted her hair into place and, with a martial light glowing in her eye, rose from her seat with a swish of flounced skirts.

Over to the East of the settlement, outside the tidy Wright farmstead, the growing heat of the day was matched by the growing heat of the words exchanged between Fred Wright and his wife. "You really must tell him he can't stay overnight," insisted Diana, for, probably, the fifth time that morning, "What were you thinking to even suggest it, have you any idea what it will look like, having them both stay overnight at the same time? I dread to think what Josie Pye would say." "But why would you care what Josie Pye says?" asked Fred, in genuine bewilderment, grunting slightly as he hefted the harness over the grey mare, waiting patiently in the yard, "you don't even like her."

"That's not the point, Fred," hissed Diana, hastening after her husband, as he backed the patient mare towards the waiting buggy, "what Josie says, you can be sure at least half of Avonlea is thinking. Besides, it would be very improper to have an unmarried couple as house guests."

"I guess if you think it's improper then I'll tell Gil he'll need to go home overnight," said Fred, anxious both to complete his current task and bring the rapidly developing 'scene' to an end. "But," he continued, laconically, tightening the girths and clicking the mare forward a couple of steps, "I really don't see the harm in having a couple of our oldest friends, who we rarely see, and are likely to see less of in the future, over to stay with us. I'd rather we just enjoyed Anne and Gilbert's company whilst we can, and let them enjoy each other's, rather than deny ourselves that privilege, solely on account of what a few sour old gossips might say."

Exhausted from this rare example of eloquence, Fred lapsed into silence and stood, alongside his scrupulously prepared equipage, with the same air of patient expectation as the old grey mare.

Diana, sensing that any further discussion on her part would invoke nothing more than Fred's usual noncommittal grunt and, long practised at the frustrating art of arguing with a silent opponent, huffed and flounced off to retrieve little Fred from his playpen. She handed her son over to his taciturn father and, eschewing Fred's proffered arms, hauled herself up into the buggy, panting slightly. Fred, hoping the silence might be a precursor to complaisance, handed little Fred up and onto his mother's lap, before leaping into his seat and picking up the reigns. As the glare of the sun, reflecting off the red road, burned less from the glare directed towards him whenever he glanced in Diana's direction, he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the road before him, throughout their journey to the Avonlea Presbyterian Church.

The occupants of Green Gables were hastening through the blazing glory of lovers lane towards the white boarded building that housed the Avonlea church. Davy, who had been harried and harassed by Marilla throughout his speedy ablutions and breakfast, was now enduring a sermon from Mrs Lynde as to the evils of tardiness and sloth, followed by relentless revision of the day's collect and golden verse, in preparation for Sunday School. Davy looked in vain for rescue from his usual champion. Anne brought up a dreamy rear to the little party, wrapped in her own thoughts, gazing greedily over the sun-soaked verdure around her. Alongside her marched Dora, equally silent, drawing as much delight from her contemplation of the starched white muslin frock and new hat she wore, as her companion evidently claimed from the snowy blooms and rustling birches that lined their path.

At Allwinds, the Blythes were finally setting off for church; much later than Sarah Blythe would have liked, and were running a serious risk of lateness as a result. The cause of this uncharacteristic tardiness was hurrying along the path some way behind his parents, stuffing the slice of bread, that constituted the remains of his pick-up breakfast, into his mouth as he ran.

Gilbert had slept long into the morning, causing his parents to hover anxiously outside his bedroom, debating, in furious whispers, the benefits of leaving him to sleep against their duty to attend Sunday service. Sarah Blythe had clinched the argument by declaring that at least she knew how necessary it was to go and offer thanks to a beneficent Providence on this day of all days. After staring uncomprehendingly at his wife for several moments, John Blythe had finally realised the significance of the anniversary. Upon which he countered that his Maker knew very well his thankfulness at having the bed through the door yonder still occupied by the great lump of young manhood within it, and he didn't need to pull Gilbert from his bed and harry him to the Presbyterian church to prove it!

Gilbert himself broke up the debate, that was threatening to move from the domestic to the theological, by emerging, blinking, from his room. Upon being informed of the time, he hastened into Sunday clothes with practised speed. He waved aside his mother's concerns over his scanty breakfast, assuring her that he began much more arduous days than this one on much less. This line of defence was, he realised, a mistake. One he would likely pay for in the weight of his luggage when he returned to Kingsport in the Autumn, with an extra box of preserves added to the stacks of victuals with which Sarah Blythe usually loaded her son at the start of each new term.

Despite the late start, the Blythes were able to slide into their pew just before the choir struck up the processional, exhibiting no outward signs of their haste beyond Mrs Blythe's heightened colour and Gilbert's skirt tails peeping over his waistband. Mrs Lynde noted Sarah Blythe's flushed cheeks and resolved to ask Gilbert if she was being monitored for consumption. Anne noticed Gilbert's shirt tails and was torn between an instinct to reach out and tuck them back in and a blushing recollection of the occasions when, through her ministrations, Gilbert's shirt had been in greater disarray than this. Gilbert, glancing over his shoulder, caught Anne's gaze and winked slyly at her. Anne's colour deepened and, her dreamy abstraction ended, she resigned herself to yet another uncomfortable Sunday service.

The Rev Bates, whilst a worthy man, was not the kindred spirit that the Rev Allen had been. His sermons were largely unremarkable and uninteresting but, as Mrs Lynde was wont to say, his orthodoxy was unquestionable, and with that his congregation must be satisfied. Today, his sonorous exposition of 1 Corinthians 11, verse 3, attracted more attention than his somnolent delivery usually justified.

Gilbert, casting a sly glance at Anne, midway through Rev Bates' address, wondered what debate the text might spark between them when they met for their twilight ramble that evening. His closed eyes and enigmatic smile that this thought engendered, gave him a curiously devout look.

Josie Pye, casting her eye around the congregation, as was her wont, during the preaching, recoiled from the sight of Charlie Sloane, nodding in solemn agreement with the minister and, instead, fixed her gaze on the more agreeable sight of Gilbert Blythe. "What a waste," she mused, morosely, that the best of Avonlea manhood was to be squandered on that red-haired nobody. Well, I don't rate his chances of being the head of that foul-tempered termagant! Poor Gilbert has been thoroughly ruled by Anne Shirley since she brought her slate crashing down on his head. If it wasn't for his endless fascination with than creature, I would have secured Gilbert years ago."

Josie followed this bitter reflection with the thought that, in her, Josie, Gilbert would have won a wife who, at least, gave him every appearance of deference. "That little hussy has him on a string," she thought, viciously. In Josie's mind, an absence of Anne would, undoubtedly, have left the way clear for an alliance between the houses of Pye and Blythe. equally, Anne was clearly only hanging on, so scandalously closely, to Gilbert on account of her failure to keep her rich Redmond beau from slipping through her fingers. It was unjust, unfair and undoubtedly the main reason Josie had failed to bring anŷ of her own beau up to scratch.

Anne, sublimely unconscious of the venom being directed towards her at this moment, was watching Mrs Lynde, with some amusement. That lady was nodding along to Rev Bates' pronouncements that a wife should submit to the guidance and rule of her husband with a gravity that suggested she herself upheld and adhered to this dictum. How this could be reconciled, thought Anne, in amusement, with the reality that poor Thomas Lynde had spent 40 years of marriage hardly daring to be head of himself, let along his wife!

Mrs Lynde, who considered herself to have been a model of wifely submission, in that all her decisions had been submitted to the nominal head of the household for his ascent shortly before, or after, they were enacted, felt no pangs of conscience at the minister's words. She did, however, resolve to investigate the state of marital harmony in the manse. This was the second time in two months that the minister had taken a Pauline text on the relationship between men and women. Last time it had been from Ephesians 5: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." This had discomfited Rachel as little as today's offering. Rachel has given the same defence to her domestic master as her spiritual, and both were equally subject to invocation in support of her opinions and decisions.

Anne, untroubled by thoughts of domestic strife in the manse, instead reflected on how the Minister's assertion of his masculine right to rule might relate to her. She thought of her curious assortment of proposals and wondered, has she found herself married to either of them, would she have been able of dutifully submit? She looked across the church to where Billy Andrews sat, eyes closed, mouth slightly agape. Nettie Andrews had a reputation as a hustler and Billy was worked hard. Sunday's usually saw him enjoying a short doze in the Andrew's pew, enduring sharp pokes from Nettie whenever his slumbers became noticeable. Anne smiled, she could never imagine herself as a dutiful wife to Billy Andrews, not that he stood much apparent chance of exercising husbandly authority. Everyone knew that Nettie Andrews ruled that particular household.

Anne's gaze wandered over to Charlie Sloane, who was still nodding solemnly in silent reprise of the minister's words. Mrs Charlie Sloane would be expected to offer her mead of wifely submission, and thankfulness for the high office to which she had been called. And Charlie's Sloanishness was bound to deepen with age. Urgh, thought Anne, it had been a fortunate escape.

But what of Roy, Anne mused. She had come so close to accepting his proposal. He had expected it of her, she had expected it of herself. That would have been a miserable subjugation indeed. For she knew now that Roy would have expected a meek wife, just as surely as Charlie Sloane did. His decisions would be the only one's enacted, his ambitions supported. He wanted a muse and an audience. His adoration of Anne had been on his terms, not hers; her cage, although gilded, would still have been barred and stifling.

Anne's gaze alighted on the one man who had actually won the right to look forward to calling himself her husband. Would Gilbert expect her submissin? Not without argument, though Anne, with a smile. But he could be suborn; and he was no Thomas Lynde, she would not be able to rule him. Although, she thought with a dancing smile, he could no doubt be persuaded! And Gilbert would always win her complaisance, Anne thought; he possessed equal powers of persuasion and, most importantly, he had her whole-hearted love and, what none of her other erstwhile suitors had achieved, her respect.

Diana Wright was less troubled by the content of the Rev Bate's address, than the immediate need to keep little Fred entertained and silent. Although she resolved to try and make sure she attended the next Ladies Aid meeting, as Mrs Lynde was bound to interrogate Mrs Bates about her husband's recent sermon themes. This was the sort of thing that would get Anne and Priscilla embroiled in endless, incomprehensible debate but, for her part, Diana felt it didn't really matter if the minister thought a man ought to be in charge, as as long as he didn't interfere in the kitchen or be stingy with the housekeeping, then there was no reason why a man couldn't think he was the boss of whatever he wanted. She wondered, vaguely, if that was why women couldn't be ministers, or elders. But it hardly mattered. Whatever titles were assigned, everyone knew that Mr Lynde oversaw all areas of church planning and organisation and the church hall would not have been built without the intervention of the Ladies Aid.

Leaving matters of church and equality to one side, Diana pulled little Fred back from underneath the Eben Wrights pew in front and attempted to distract him by waving a cloth bunny towards him. Perhaps mother had been right and one was too young to be taking a baby to into church. He was generally such a good boy, but today he seemed determined to venture beyond the confines of the Wright pew. Maybe he was stricken by the spirit of non conformity that appeared to have struck his father. Diana was still rather taken aback by Fred's argument this morning, in support of having Anne and Gilbert to stay at the same time. Diana glanced sideways at the somnolent Fred and reflected how animated he had looked, during his surprising outburst. Perhaps she ought, as an obedient wife, allow Fred to be right on this occasion?

 _(An: Apologies for the long delay between chapters. My summer has been busier than anticipated so opportunities to write have been scarce. I was also a little unsure how to back myself out of the corner I felt myself to be in with this story. But a shower of correspondence from Windy Willows, arriving in one glorious delivery, and an inspiring shore tryst near Greengage Close, got me itching to write again._

 _Thus chapter feels a little transitional. It's an attempt to manoeuvre the plot, and get me putting pen to paper (well, finger to iPad) again. I hope this gets me in a position to crack on again and hopefully start to scratch KwaK's itch to see the Wrights and future Blythes together.)_


	13. Anniversary Revelations, Part One

_[AN: Apologies for the enormous gap between updates. Life intervened. But whilst time to write has been scarce, I have still been spending time with this pair in my head. It may be a damp November in reality, but I am still enjoying an Avonlea summer. I hope there are still a few of you around to enjoy it with me.]_

 **Chapter 13: anniversary revelations, pt. 1**

Gilbert Blythe strode purposefully along lovers lane, the softening evening sunshine creeping through the leafy canopy above, illuminating his path with sharp glimmers of greenish light. The scent of musky fern mingled with the sharpness of wild garlic, creating an exotic, aromatic bower. But Gilbert was not in the mood for lingering amongst this scented loveliness. One could not enjoy the intimate, dappled, beauty of lovers lane, unless one had a certain red-headed, freckle-dappled beauty to enjoy it with.

He was more than usually impatient to reach Anne tonight. Apart from a brief, frustratingly public, conversation in the church yard after the morning service, he had seen nothing of her today. It hardly seemed possible that he had endured months of separation and yet lived, when now he could scarcely sustain half a day without her.

He had barely contained his impatience during a rare afternoon visit from his Carmondy cousins, resenting the afternoon spent at home that could otherwise have been with Anne. Anne, he knew, had been planning to take the twins rowing on the pond, culminating in a shore picnic. Gilbert had been picturing her dancing through the waves and wiggling her toes in the sand, even as he had answered his Aunt and Uncle's questions about his Redmond life.

"What's it like at Redmond this year, Gilbert?" Aunt Rose had asked. "Very different," Gilbert had answered, talking, with truth, about the increased workload, the hours in hospital, the evening lectures and early morning rowing. Then there had been the transition from senior to lowly first year. Even Cooper Prizewinners weren't immune from the disdain and exasperation meted out to freshman medics by passing doctors and, bristlingly efficient, ward sisters.

What Gilbert hadn't explained was how empty and desolate Kingsport felt without Anne's illuminating presence. The familiar streets felt strangely lifeless without the possibility of spotting a flash of her red hair in the distance. Friday nights hung heavily without the prospect of merry companionship at Patty Place. Even the occasional glimpses of his untouchable Queen, from amidst the crowd of worshipers, would be preferable to this endless, aching absence.

There Gilbert checked his thoughts. What wouldn't he give to see Anne at Redmond once more? But no, he would not really want to go back to watching Anne from afar, rejected and hopeless. He may not have Anne with him, but he had, instead, the secret satisfaction of her letters; vivid accounts of her life in Summerside, each page bursting with life and love, regardless of the type of pen she wielded. The streets of Kingsport may not be lit up with flashes of her vivid presence, but so many of it's quiet corners had been anointed with the joy wrought by her correspondence. Gilbert smiled as he recalled a particularly sunny evening in Old St. John's, where he had spent a happy hour reading a letter, written with a particularly fine sort pen. Memories of their previous friendly - frustrating - companionship in that old graveyard, superseded by a more intimate, passionate, assignation.

But vivid though Anne's letters were, he yearned to have her with him. The difference was that, for so long, Redmond had been his - their - destination. Now it was a journey. One he travelled impatiently and alone.

Gilbert climbed over the gate separating lovers lane from the road, his pace increasing as he sped down the road towards Green Gables. He recalled Anne's parting words to him in the church yard, after he had teasingly asked her if she was looking forward to submitting unto him once they were married. He had expected mock indignation, or a seasoned riposte; instead she had leaned dangerously close and whispered, "meet me at twilight, Gilbert, and I will show you how much I long to submit to you." She had followed this provoking promise with a feather-light nip of his ear lobe, before swirling round and gliding down the path, pausing to exchange airy common places with Mrs Bell. Gilbert gaped after her, his mind awash with images he had no business thinking of on a Sunday, in a crowded Avonlea church yard, under the steely gaze of Mrs Rachel Lynde.

"Man will be head of the woman." Whoever wrote that clearly didn't know what it was to be entirely, completely in love with a magnificent, infuriating, tantalising, bewitching, beautiful woman. He was utterly at her feet. His long sought, hard won, Queen Anne. For half his life he had stood or fallen by her approval, as he sought her forgiveness, her friendship, her love. But now his heart was entirely in her keeping, his happiness hers to command.

Gilbert broke into a run, arriving at the Green Gables gate minutes later, heart pumping, head pounding, breathless and gasping. He lent over the fence, taking in great lungful's of still, warm, air.

Anne was keeping solitary vigil on the veranda at Green Gables, watching for Gilbert's arrival. Davy and Dora were off on their own lawful (and not so lawful) enterprises, with strict instructions to be home by twilight. Marilla, on whom the heat of the day had taken its toll, had gone prematurely to bed, a cold compress on her aching head, the curtains closed against the glare of the sun.

Mrs Lynde had also retired early to her own quarters, her rotund frame unable to support the layers of corsetry and petticoats she deemed appropriate for Sundays, during the stifling summer heat. She was, even now, ensconced in solitary splendour in her kitchen-parlour, garbed in night attire; wearing as few garments as she decently could, out with the protecting defence of bed sheets. Mrs Rachel kept her hands busily occupied with patch work and her mind even busier with plans for her next visit to the Manse. She would not quit her own chambers whilst thus attired, lest the sight of her unfettered frame, clad, from neck to toe, in only a voluminous cotton night gown, topped with an equally voluminous calico dressing gown, sully the innocent gaze of the young occupants of Green Gables. Mindful of the risk that she might be exposed to the impudent gaze of chance travellers along the quiet lane alongside Green Gables, Mrs Rachel had drawn the blind. This served a useful, double purpose, of hiding her current state of undress from the impertinent and leaving the lane unpatrolled by Mrs Lynde watchful eyes.

As soon as she spotted Gilbert tearing down the lane, Anne hurried towards the gate, arriving a few moments after he did. She was flushed and slightly breathless on her arrival.

"What's the urgency, Mr Blythe?" called Anne, merrily, raising a saucy eyebrow.

Gilbert looked up, still grasping the top of the gate, peering through a fringe of wayward curls at his approaching goddess. He glanced briefly towards the house, noting the empty veranda and Mrs Rachel's window, closed fast against the world.

"Because it is almost 24 hours since I last had the opportunity to do this," he responded, vaulting lightly over the fence and taking the smiling Anne into his arms, spinning her round in the process, so that Anne now faced the house and he the road.

"But you saw me at church this morning, only seven hours ago!" admonished Anne, laughingly.

"Humm, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to do there what I can do now," Gil murmured, pressing himself closer to Anne, pinning her against the fence.

"And what's that?" prompted Anne, the beat of her heart ringing in her ears. Excitement mounting within her as she recognised the desire burning in his dark eyes, fiercely black, instead of their usual soft brown. This was a gaze she hadn't seen since that glorious, sylvan – golden – tryst at their apple tree. Gilbert had had himself under such rigid control since then that she did, occasionally, wonder if she had dreamt the encounter. She thrilled at the thought that she may catch sight of that electric, abandoned, Gilbert again, and thrilled even more at the thought it was she who had the power to excite him thus.

Gilbert, tracing a line with his finger, from her temple to her jaw, didn't immediately respond to Anne's question. His finger ran along her lower lip, then under her chin, which he tilted towards him. Anne's lips parted expectantly, but it was the lightest of soft kisses that Gilbert eventually dropping onto the corner of her mouth.

"This", he whispered, tracing a line from her chin to collarbone, and feathering her neck with another, fleeting kiss. "This," he huskily intoned, before tracing a pattern along the edge of her collarless, summer dress and kissing the soft flesh there exposed.

Then he clasped Anne's head in his hands, gazing intently into her smoky grey eyes, before continuing, "and this". He kissed her on her soft, parted lips, slowly at first but with gathering intensity, pressing, closer and closer until…

Anne felt Gilbert pulling away from their embrace with some surprise, and then disappointment. Then she heard quiet, tentative footsteps coming down the road, and understood, turning sharply around to view the on-comer. Dora was wandering slowly towards the Green Gables gate, blushing profusely.

"Oh," murmured Anne, gathering her scattered wits, in an attempt to pull together an appropriate greeting for the scarlet Dora.

"Hello Dora", said Gilbert, affably, as if he had just been strolling up the lane, rather than been interrupted embracing, scandalously closely, his fiancé. "Have you had a good day?"

"Oh, erm, yes thank you G-Gilbert," stuttered Dora, "I erm, have just been to the Barry's, but I, erm, need to be home now, erm…" Dora trailed off, her eloquence exhausted, and looked, hopefully, towards Anne.

"Go in quietly, please Dora" said Anne, recovering something of her usual authority, "Marilla had a headache, so has gone to bed early and Mrs Lynde is in her parlour. Tap on her door and let her know it's you as you go past. I don't expect she'll be out at all this evening. Did you have a good time with Minne May?"

"Oh yes, thank you Anne, I'll tiptoe in." Dora, looking relieved to have the conversational reigns taken off her, edged past Anne and Gilbert, with another blush, and started up the path to the sanctuary of Green Gables.

"Oh, Dora," called Anne, as Dora had made it halfway to the front porch, "Do you know where Davy is?"

Dora turned, her glance briefly meeting Gilbert's kind gaze, causing her to colour up again and stare, fixedly, at her boot.

"Oh, um, he's rowing on the pond with Milty Boulter and Archie Sloane," stammered Dora, "he knows he needs to be home by dusk, he promised Marilla."

"That's fine, Dora," smiled Anne, "we may take a stroll in that direction ourselves and remind him. Goodnight Dora."

Dora accepted the dismissal thankfully, and scurried towards the house.

Anne held out her hand to Gilbert who took it in his, interlacing his fingers with hers. They then walked quietly, through the dropping sunlight, towards the Lake of Shinning Waters.

As they approached the waters edge, the peace of the still evening was broken, by the sounds of splashing and raucous laughter floating over the water from the direction of the sturdy wooden bridge. Gilbert saw the sharp intake of breath, and the sudden start towards the scene of the commotion, that overcame Anne. But he checked Anne's impulse to flight and hasty admonishment.

Striding swiftly forward, Gilbert hailed the authors of rumpus with a cheerful, "hello there boys, what's the commotion? I hope no one needs rescuing, I'm not really dressed for a dunking!"

Milty Boulter, who was the sole occupant of the little flat, presently moored, precariously, beneath the bridge, called back, "No, nothing to worry about, Mr Blythe, Davy fell overboard and then Archie fell in right after them when he was trying to haul him back, they are both ok."

To provide evidence in support of this assurance, two damp heads appeared over the side of the boat, as both boys, paused in their hitherto fruitless efforts to climb back into the dory, and waved, enthusiastically, at Anne and Gilbert.

"Hey Anne!" called Davy, adjusting his grip on the side of the boat, "you should have seen the bully splash Archie made when he tried to haul me in, he got a shock, alright."

"Davy Keith!" Exclaimed Anne, in her best Principal Shirley tones, "You'll catch your death in that cold water, get back into the boat at once."

"Well, that's what we've been trying to do Anne," returned Davy, in tones of exaggerated patience, "but instead of getting me back in the boat, we just got Archie out of it! I guess Milty will just have to try and get the pair of us back in."

"No he won't," said Gilbert, sharply, "we're not having all three of you in the water and no one to skipper the ship."

During the interchange between Anne and Davy, Gilbert had been hastily removing his boots and rolling up his trousers. He now slipped his shirt over his head, and handed it to Anne, with a sly, whispered "hang on to that, for me, I know I can trust you to take excellent care of my shirts." He then waded out into the shallows, calling to the stranded boys, as he went.

"Milty, have you still got the oars? Good. Then stroke the boat over toward me. Davy and Archie, hang onto the back and kick. We aren't going to get you back in this boat without mishap, so I think the best thing to do is get you all to dry land as best we can."

The boys attempted to obey Gilbert's instructions with right good will. Davy and Archie kicking with such enthusiasm, that the sole source occupant of the boat was soon as soaked as the two men overboard. Milty struggled to combine the arduous task of propelling the boat forwards with determining the direction, and their route was circular for some time.

After watching their floundering and giddy efforts for some minutes, Gilbert grew tired of shouting directions from his distant position, and waded deep into the water, yelling at Milty to hold the oar out towards him. Milty was, eventually, able to obey this command. Gilbert grabbed the dripping oar and pulled the boat to shore, ably assisted by the enthusiastic human motor at the rear.

Milty, leaping out of the boat once Gilbert had it securely in his grasp, over estimated its proximity to the shore, and took a dunking that left him as throughly soaked as his erstwhile shipmates. The unfortunate voyagers waded ashore and fell, giggling and sopping, at Anne's feet. There were followed shortly afterwards by a hardly less wet, but significantly less amused Gilbert, who was surveying his damp trousers ruefully.

Anne, attempting to maintain a level of school teacher-ly authority, was battling a strong desire to laugh at the exploits of the three damp sinners before her, and an even stronger desire to respond to the familiar ache, that the sight of the partially clad Gilbert, with damp curls plastering his forehead and water glistening on his naked torso, generated. Anne pulled her gaze away from the dangerous view of Gilbert and focused, instead, on the trio of miscreants at her feet.

"Boys," Anne called, sharply, "pull yourselves together. No doubt you think this is all highly amusing, but the currents can get strong around the bridge and you could have got into serious difficulties. Can someone explain to me how you managed to end up in the water in the first place?"

"That was my fault, Anne," said Davy, immediately. "Milty's hat fell into the water and I was leaning over to get it back, when I fell in."

"Well, it was my fault really," put in Archie, a little more bashful about his confession to Avonlea's absent, but much discussed, high school principal. "I, er, put the hat in the water in the first place."

"You put it in the water?" queried Anne, solemnly.

"Well, it fell off and I, sort of helped it on its way." Archie muttered.

"And how did you end up in the water yourself?" Anne continued, throwing a sharp look at Davy as she asked. Davy coloured and looked conscious.

"That was kind of my fault as well, Anne," said Davy

"No it wasn't" responded Archie, keen to save Davy from unwarranted domestic strife, "I was just trying to pull you up and over balanced and fell in."

"Yes, but I sort of helped you on your way." confessed Davy, throwing a look of apology towards Anne and then, as an afterthought, his injured chum.

"But it was still Archie's fault a way, for throwing my hat overboard." interjected Milty, keen to place blame where he felt it most justly lay.

"And it's your fault for having such a stupid hat that you can't keep on your head!" retorted Archie, with some feeling, "you've been having to stop and pick it up constantly today."

Anne, sensing that this could turn into a veritable 'House that Jack built', if the pattern of blame and counter-blame were allowed to flourish, intervened in the developing argument. "There's no point in trying to work out whose fault it is," she began, in stentorian accents, "the fact is you have, all three, been silly and heedless and ended up putting yourselves in unnecessary danger, not to mention putting Gilbert to a great deal of trouble, extricating you from your, self-imposed, difficulties."

She looked sternly at the three, abashed boys, then permitted herself a quick glance at Gilbert. His feet were reshod, and he had rolled his trousers legs back down, creating a curious, mottled effect, with the occasional dry patch breaking up the overall dampness. His chest was still damp and glistening with moisture; he remained entirely unclad from the waist up, due, Anne realised, with blush, to the fact that she still had his shirt clasped tightly to her breast.

Anne flushed and swallowed and decided that it was high time that the sodden miscreants were sent home. She concluded her lecture by directing the boys to head home without deviation or delay. Davy received a supplementary direction to enter Green Gables quietly and put himself straight to bed, having first disposed of his wet garments in a tidy manner.

Davy, feeling rather pleased to have incurred no greater consequences from his escapade, scrambled to his feet. The boys had scampered no more than a few feet, when Davy ground to a halt and turned, enquiring of Anne, rather urgently, "say Anne, what are we going to do about Mr Barry's flat? We ought to take it back to the landing."

"Don't worry about that," cut in Gilbert, quickly, "I'll make sure the boat is safely returned. You boys get home and out of those wet clothes as soon as possible. Go on, scarper!"

The three duly scarpered, leaving the, much maligned, vessel to the care of their seniors. Anne, attempting to maintain some trace of her previous briskness, asked Gilbert, rather sharply, "So, what do you man to do with this boat then?"

Gilbert grinned, "Why, commandeer it, of course," he replied, do you care for a row on the lake?"

Anne peered inside the boat. "It looks frightfully damp," she said, doubtfully.

Gilbert reached out for the shirt in Anne's hand. Taking it from her, he used it to wipe down the sodden bench. Then he held out his hand to Anne and helped her into the boat.

The push off from the bank, and Gilbert's subsequent, showery, scramble into he best, rendered this act of gallantry almost obsolete. Eventually a dripping Gilbert slid into the seat opposite a dewy Anne and took up the oars.

Anne leaned back, dropping her hand over the side of the boat, and trailing her fingers in the water. For once, she was fairly oblivious to the beauty of the Lake of Shinning Waters, bathed in all the rosy glory provided by the close of a summer's day. Gilbert, the pink sunlight reflecting off the droplets of water, dripping from his damp curls and onto his chest, rarely exposed muscles rippling from bicep to breast, absorbed her whole attention.

After a minute or two, Anne took notice of their surroundings and observed that they didn't appear to be rowing towards the landing.

"No," replied Gilbert, looking longingly at Anne, who lay, languidly, against the prow of the boat, one arm draped negligently over the side. "We are heading for the shore. I have a hankering to feel the wind in your hair and the sand between your toes." He hesitated slightly, focusing on the rise and fall of her chest, as she breathed softly, in and out. "I know Anne-girl, the Dryad," he went on, "but I have yet to discover if there's an Anne amongst the Haliae, or a Halia amongst the Annes. I think tonight would be a good time to find out."

Anne, listening to the distant boom of the ocean, growing louder and more insistent with each stroke that Gilbert made, propelling them closer to the shoreline, glanced up at her own, elusive, Proteus and agreed.


	14. Anniversary Revelations, Part Two

_[Many thanks to everyone who has written encouraging reviews in the last few months. I haven't abandoned this story. I just hit a bit of a wall and wasn't sure how to get going again. But I am creaking back into writing action again. Updates my be slow, but we will get to the end of this summer. And it promises to be a hot one... ;-)]_

 **Chapter 14: Anniversary Revelations, pt. 2.**

The sun was hanging low in sky, incarnadining the waves below. A breeze blew up from the sea, rippling through the grass and abating, somewhat, the sticky, close heat that had oppressed Avonlea for much of the day. Gilbert and Anne, having tethered Mr Barry's, much abused, flat to a post - set into the bank for that very purpose - disembarked, somewhat rockily, then set off, half running, half sliding, over the springy turf, then the grassy dunes that separated the lakeside from the shore.

As she closed in on the red sand and pebble beach, Anne stopped abruptly, pulling her auburn locks loose from their braid and letting her hair steam out behind her. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the salt-tanged air, and hurled her arms wide, causing Gilbert's shirt, which she still carried, to flutter in the curling wind, like a flag.

"Ooh, how wonderful," breathed Anne, turning her face to the tangy breeze and breathing in once more. "It's been so muggy all day, how glorious to feel the air again. Feel it, Gilbert, breathe it in."

Anne gestured at the vista, beyond them. Gilbert closed in behind her and wrapped his arms around Anne's waist, nestling his chin on her shoulder and following her gaze, out to the glowing waves and the crimson horizon; but his eye did not remain fixed on the sea for long. He dropped his gaze, nuzzling into her hair and inhaling. "Mumm, beautiful," he whispered. "You're right, Avonlea has been stifling today." He buried his face in Anne's hair and, with a murmured whisper of "rosemary," dropped a fleeting kiss on the nape of her neck.

Anne, choosing to ignore the reference to the rosemary scented water she had rinsed her hair with on Friday night, responded by burrowing closer into Gilbert's embrace and replying, "for remembrance?"

"Well, I am remembering the last time you stole my shirt," murmured Gilbert, "that is a particularly fond recollection of mine." Gilbert's embrace tightened with one hand, whilst the other moved the heavy, russet hair aside, exposing Anne's neck to receive a trail of soft kisses.

"Well, I," responded Anne, with emphasis, pulling herself, momentarily, from Gilbert's embrace and turning to face him, "am remembering an evening, a year ago today, when I finally realised that I loved you." Anne ran her hands up Gilbert's arms, tracing the lines of firm muscle, before winding her arms around his neck and pulling him close for a sweet, lingering, kiss.

"Only a year ago?" Queried Gilbert, with a smile "I'm sure I detected signs before then." Gilbert bent to kiss her again, but was forestalled by the tears gathering in Anne's luminous, grey eyes. "It can't have been so painful a realisation, can it?" He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at these unexpected tears.

"Oh but Gilbert, at the same time I knew I loved you, you were dying. I was too late. Too late even to have the right to say good bye. You don't know what agonies I suffered that night, Gilbert. This was a tragedy I couldn't find any romance in."

Anne's tears dropped at the recollection of the book of revelation that had been opened to her that dreadful night. This time, Gilbert did bend to kiss her, cradling her face in his hands and wiping each tear away with his thumb, then dropping a kiss on each spot where the tears fell.

"Anne, my darling, do not dwell on what might have been." Gilbert whispered, gently, "My recollection of last summer is not always clear, but I understand that today is also the anniversary of when I started to live. As you were weeping over my illness, I was starting to overcome it. And I did, Anne." Gilbert kissed her, very gently, and pulled her closed into his embrace. "I am very much alive." Gilbert's arms tightened around Anne as their kiss deepened.

Anne's hands swept up Gilbert's back, outlining the taut, hard muscles. She pressed closer into him, eager to taste and to feel. Gilbert smiled as their kiss broke, momentarily. "I am alive, Anne," he murmured, before claiming her mouth with another, searing, kiss, letting his hands travel down her back and pressing her closer to him. "Do you know how very alive I am?"

Anne's response was unspoken, but the subsequent kiss was fierce and unbroken. They were both flushed and panting when they finally broke away. Anne stepped towards the shore and, holding out her hand to Gilbert, said, with a smile that held just a hint of challenge, "Come on then, show me how alive you are."

Gilbert took her hand with a smile and a slow, "Is that a dare, Miss Shirley?" Then the pair set off at a run, along the sweep of red beach and round the headland.

Some minutes later they arrived, flushed and breathless, at Gilbert's planned destination: a small, rocky cove, backed with steep dunes and and sloping cliffs. The sun had dropped low on the horizon, setting the red cliffs above and the waves before, aglow with erubescent light. Gilbert perched on a rock and began to remove his boots. "I've been imagining walking barefoot through the waves all day. Would you like to see if that water is as hot as it looks?"

Anne laughed and said, quickly, "I am sure it is not even warm, even after today's heat. Besides, haven't you had enough of paddling tonight?"

Gilbert grimaced, "My foray into the pond, was hardly the stroll through the surf I had in mind! Besides, it's your toes I want see in the sand, not mine."

Even as she uttered her protest, Anne had seated herself on the sand and swiftly removed her shoes. She unrolled a stocking and wiggled the subsequently liberated toes in the sand, flicking a shower of sand in Gilbert's direction. "There you go, Gilbert dear, five sandy toes, as requested. Goodness, that does feel rather delicious." She made to rummage amongst her skirts, to free the other stocking, but was forestalled by Gilbert, who had moved to her side with astonishing swiftness.

"Please, let me," he murmured, huskily, his hand travelling, caressingly, from her ankle to her knee. He stopped and looked at Anne, questioningly. She took his hand in hers and guided it, tremblingly, to her stocking top, then lay back, as Gilbert gently unrolled her second stocking, his hands sweeping over her bare skin in an ecstasy of exploration.

Gilbert eased the thin, filmy fabric over her toes and dropped it lightly onto the sand, cradling Anne's foot in his hand as he knelt before her, surveying her pale flesh. Anne propped herself up on her elbows and smiled up at him, the hint of invitation evident in her wide, grey eyes. He ran his hand softly round her ankle, probing delicately as if feeling for a break or a strain.

"Yes, that all appears to be sound, Miss Shirley, I can ascertain no signs of damage," Gilbert grinned at Anne as her caressed her ankle again, "Although, there does appear to be some evidence of previous injury, perhaps a twist or a sprain, caused I think, by an episode of hot-headedness, or possibly even pig-headedness?" The grin widened as Anne jerked her ankle from Gilbert's grip and retorted,

"It was a dare, Gilbert Blythe, you would have done exactly the same! Besides, it was the other ankle that was injured, not this one, Doctor!" This last word was laced with teasing venom.

Gilbert's eyes sparkled with mischief as he surveyed Anne's flushed countenance, diffused with a tantalising combination of indignation and anticipation.

"Alas, no doctor, only a poor medical student and a junior one at that," he sighed, with mock mournfulness. "I need all the practice I can get. May I proceed, madam?"

A laughing nod, greeted this last request and Gilbert's hand caressed Anne's ankle once again, this time continuing upwards, smoothing over the round swell of her calf. He ran his thumb along her shin, murmuring as he did so, "humm, Talocrural Articulation is satisfactory, the Extensor digitorum longus is particularly fine and the Tibialis anterior, quite exquisite."

Gilbert's firm fingers swept over Anne's knee as he continued, breathily, "perfectly formed patella, a wonderful example of the maker's craft." His fingers slid further, hesitating on Anne's inner thigh.

Anne, disappointed at this pause, sought to prompt Gilbert into continuing his audacious catalogue. "So," she prompted, "what do you call this part of me?"

"Forbidden," returned Gilbert, swallowing convulsively. "Out of bounds."

"And if you are here by my invitation?" Continued Anne, placing her hand over Gilbert's, preventing the withdrawal she felt him about to make.

"Then I would advise you to withdraw that invitation, you don't know what liberties I might take."

"I know what liberties I hope you might make," returned Anne, pulling him closer.

Gilbert groaned, but did nothing to resist Anne's pull, falling, alongside her, onto the warm, red sand, kissing her deeply and allowing his fingers to resume their journey up her leg. Anne's hands began their own exploration, caressing the taut muscles in Gilbert's back.

Around them, the rock and sands glowed richly pink as the sun dipped, glowing red, below the horizon. The flaming embers of the day threw a fiery glow over the rocky cove, the conflagrant inlet augmented by the encroaching darkness beyond.

Anne did not notice the heat disappearing from the day, the light waning and the sun dwindling to a burning streak at the far reaches of the ocean. She saw, felt, heard and tasted only Gilbert. Felt the touch of his fingers, fumbling with the buttons of her shirt waist, felt their trembling nervousness as she helped him loose the fastenings on her corset, felt the heat of his naked chest on hers. She heard the pounding of his heart as she trailed kisses across his breast and along his neck, then eased his sodden trousers off, her fingers matching his own, earlier, wanton exploration from hip to toe. She saw the lines on his flesh, where the sun's burning gaze could penetrate no further and tasted the salt-flecked sweetness of his skin as she sought to touch and kiss every precious plane, curve and hollow.

Gilbert, revelling in their incarnadined seclusion, matched Anne's boldness with a fearlessness of his own. He touched, tasted, gazed, delighted in his goddess. His hands caressed the pale skin wrapped around his, his lips sought to anoint every glorious inch of pale flesh surrendered to his gaze. His fingers raked through the rosemary scented locks, his skin burned against hers as he pressed closer, trailing kisses down the white column of her neck, her shoulders, elbow, wrist, thumb. Every garment removed revealed more of Anne for him to anoint with kisses, stroke, caress, wrap closer and closer around him.

The red glow of sunset burned about them, within them. They kissed deeply, hungrily; Chest, hip, thighs abreast. Limbs entwined, pressed so close, yet aching to be closer. Gilbert, vaguely conscious of the dim echo of the waves, below the roar of his heart pounding and blood pumping, grasped for the last vestiges of control and broke away from the kiss, his lips hovering moments from hers.

"Anne, don't let me do this, tell me to stop, I must stop," He pleaded.

Anne responded, "Don't stop Gilbert."

Their lips met. With all the promise of discarded restraint. Anne, abandoning herself to the exquisite pleasure of Gilbert's touch, gasped as his thumb kneaded the rosy tip of her breast. She shook her knee clear of her still encumbering skirts and wrapped her legs around him. Gilbert groaned as she pressed against him, shifting closer in response. Even surrounded by a sea of discarded garments, Gilbert felt hampered by the clothes that still remained. He wanted more. She wanted more. He felt her shifting and yearning for him as surely as Anne felt his own aching desire. He shouldn't, he wouldn't, he couldn't. But he wanted more.

With a monumental effort, Gilbert pulled away from their embrace, dropping his forehead onto the rapidly cooling sand, panting.

"Anne, we are playing with fire," he whispered.

Anne, face flushed with exhilaration, dropped her head back onto the sand, flaming hair glinting in the fiery glow of the dying sun, and spread her arms wide. Her eyes closed, her voice a breathy invocation, challenge and plea:

"Then let me burn."

 _[Big thanks to everyone who has followed, reviewed and favourited this story. Sorry for keeping you hanging on so long between instalments. I promise the wait for the next chapter will be a brief as I can possibly make it. Big thanks especially to KwaK for telling me to keeping writing (and for occupying this space so perfectly, this chapter was soaked in the effects of the first set of Windy Willows Love Letters) and to Alinya for sharing that blocks happen even to the best of us.]_


	15. Anniversary revelations, part three

**Chapter 15: Anniversary Revelations, Part 3**

Anne's words hung in the air before him. Gilbert rolled away and laid his head on the damp sand and turning to face her. Anyone else might look disheveled, laying on a beach in the failing light, petticoats hitched, chemise askew, hair spread in tangled masses about her. But Anne's face held that same rapt glow he saw when she gave recitations: immersed, unconscious, absorbed completely by the moment she was describing, inhabiting her inner world entirely.

She sighed and shifted on the sand, then turned a little to face him, fixing her limpid grey eyes upon his hazel ones. They remained silent for some minutes, neither wanting to break the smouldering intensity of that moment, either to dose the flame entirely or to enkindle a conflagration.

The last rosy flicker on the horizon, marking the death of the day, sparked and waned. The moon had risen high in the sky before either was conscious that the red glow of sunset had been superseded by the silver moonrise.

Gilbert noticed first. Hearing the steady thud of the waves, which were creeping further up the rapidly cooling sands. He dropped his gaze back to the sand and muttered, "we can't, Anne, I can't." He glanced up again, wincing under her stricken scrutiny.

"It's not that I don't want to, Anne," he muttered, grasping a handful of sand and flinging it, violently, up the beach, "you are beautiful and generous and desirable and I wish, I wish, more than anything, that I had the right to love you as you deserve to be loved."

"You have that right, Gilbert, you will always have that right."

"But I don't!" Cried Gilbert, sitting up and hurling more handfuls of sand towards the waves, "I won't for another two years."

"And if I give you that right?" queried Anne, with a faint smile, propping herself up on her elbow.

"But you can't!" Gilbert exclaimed. More sand thudded into the encroaching turf, shallow trenches appearing as he continued to scrape handfuls of damp, dark sand from the surface around him. "I am not your husband, I can't be your husband yet. I asked you to wait for me Anne; yet I am the impatient, demanding, greedy fool, thinking I can take and take and take what I have no right to ask you to give."

"You don't take Gilbert, I give. And I will give and give and give much more." Anne's voice rose, quivering slightly. "I have promised that I will be yours, I don't care what the world thinks, I am as much yours now as I will be when I am your wife."

"All for love and the world well lost!" quoted Gilbert, with bitter irony. A flurry of impatient splashes marked his angry pause. "I don't care for the world's opinion either, Anne, nothing like as much as I should. But if we act on this impulse, then it's our world that we lose, our hopes and dreams, our future."

"I don't want a future!" Wailed Anne, rising to her feet. Sods of damp sand flew past Gilbert's nose and landed, with a satisfying splotch, in the encroaching foam beneath them. "I want a now! I want you, Gilbert! Now." More sand thudded into the surf.

"I just want this moment, Gilbert. You and me, here and now, with no thought of yesterday and tomorrow and no thought of what we can't do and what we must do. Nothing but us..."

Anne trailed off, a little uncertainly. Gilbert made as if to interject, but Anne cut him off, saying, with renewed animation, "I don't need you to tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't, why we mustn't, why what I am feeling right now is all kinds of wrong, I know that, Gilbert Blythe. I know what a scandal it is for me to even feel the level of longing for you that I do, let alone act on it, I know how improper, how wanton, I am."

With that, Anne seemed to notice, for the first time, her state of relative undress, pushing the thin strap of her chemise back onto her shoulder and wrapping her arms across her chest. She half turned from Gilbert who leapt to his feet and, with a swift stride, stood before her, taking her chin in one hand and smoothing her disordered tresses with the other.

"Don't ever let me hear you accusing yourself like that again, Anne Shirley." he said, fiercely. "You are the bravest, truest, most generous woman I know. Have you any idea what a blessed privilege it is for me to be loved so, so abundantly by you? You make me feel like I own the whole world."

He ran his arms down her side, pulling her into a gentle embrace, dropping a kiss on her ruddy locks, before continuing, "You know, when I was looking at you earlier, and saw that look on your face, like you had entered a delightful dream world and were living in some secret rapture; well, I felt about a hundred feet tall, knowing that I could make you sigh and smile and dream like that."

"Really?" Queried Anne, looking up at Gilbert, with a watery smile.

"Really." returned Gilbert. "One of the most precious gifts you give me is the knowledge that, when we are finally able to, well..." He floundered a little, words coming a little less readily than his kisses, "well, what I mean is, when we are united, then you will meet me as my as my equal."

"Well, possibly not entirely your equal," murmured Anne with a smile, nuzzling his neck, lovingly, "I may be a little less patient and a little more demanding than you are."

Anne tilted her face towards Gilbert's, inviting his kiss. This was bestowed willingly. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled herself upwards, brushing his chest lightly with hers.

"The problem is, Mr-on-his-way-to-becoming-Dr Blythe," Anne murmured, breathily, "that dreams, sometimes, just aren't enough.

"But the bigger problem, Miss-on-her-way-to-becoming-Mrs-Dr-Blythe," whispered Gilbert, raggedly, "Is that your dreams, our dreams," he corrected, hastily, encountering her quizzically raised eyebrow, "can not be realised for two more years."

Gilbert's last words were spoken heavily, with finality. Anne, continued to caress the fine curls at the nape of his neck, as if he had said nothing.

"Anne..." began Gilbert, warningly.

"Are you concerned things might be getting a little too heated, Gilbert?" queried Anne, dropping a line of tiny kisses along Gilbert's neck and collarbone.

"But Anne, we can't," Gilbert protested, weakly, gasping sharply as Anne's kisses, trailing across his chest, were briefly interspersed with nibbles.

"Well, my dear" returned Anne, pausing in her task of announcing Gilbert's torso with kisses, to look up at him, smiling slyly. "If things are getting to hot to handle, then what we really need to do is cool off. Any suggestions, doctor?" That last, spoken with sly irony as, without waiting for Gilbert to respond, Anne tugged at the fastenings at her waist and, moments later, her petticoat pooled about her feet. She stepped out of the circle of lace-trimmed cotton and kicked it towards the pile of discarded garments that already littered the sand. Before Gilbert quite realised what she was about, a second lace trimmed garment dropped to the floor and was kicked towards its companions. These last were, Gilbert realised with a frisson, Anne's drawers. She stood before him now clad in nothing but a thin, knee-skimming, chemise.

"I'm not sure how this is going to help, Anne," he muttered, hoarsely, his hands following an innate path of their own, one skimming down her back to trace the outline of her soft form, the other hovering, hesitant, above the outline of one soft breast. Instinct won over caution, and he cupped it gently, running his thumb, firmly, over its rosy tip. He thrilled, despite himself, at the response his touch invoked in Anne; her grey eyes darkened and lips parted.

Anne kissed him, firmly, deeply, passionately, pressing closely against him, revelling in the friction created by their almost naked bodies. Then, as swiftly and suddenly as the kiss began, it was ended. Anne pulled back from their heated embrace and panted, "we need to cool off, Gilbert. There is an excellent means of doing so, right in front of us."

She smiled and, before Gilbert's astonished and exhilarated gaze, pulled her chemise over her head. For an exquisite moment, Gilbert surveyed her, gloriously naked, in the moonlight. The silver glow illuminated her slender legs and arms, milky shoulders, high, rounded breasts, the soft curve of her hips and belly and...

But the moment was fleeting. Scarcely had Gilbert registered the triangle of auburn curls at the crux of her legs, then Anne had turned and set off at a run towards the waves that were swelling and crashing along the shore.

Gilbert swallowed and ran a hand through his rumpled curls. "This really isn't helping, Anne," he sighed staring, transfixed as, arms aloft, russet curls swirling, she hurled her pale, slender frame into the beating surf.

She stood, waist deep in the swell, leaping into the oncoming breakers, disappearing under one breaking wave, emerging, moments later, spluttering, from the foam.

"Gilbert! Gilbert!" Anne emerged from her briny playground, waving ecstatically, "come on! It is wonderful in here."

"I'm not sure that this is such a great idea, Anne," called Gilbert, hesitantly. In fact he was absolutely sure that this was the most reckless, dangerous thing Anne had done this entire dangerous and reckless evening.

"You have no idea how liberating it is in here!" Yelled Anne, to the moon and the waves and the rocks, as much as to Gilbert.

Gil sighed and began to gather up the scattered clothing and carry them to the safety of a rock above the high water mark. "liberation!" He mused, sardonically, "what I don't need now is more liberation." He regarded Anne, embracing the waves with childish enthusiasm, torn between intense longing to abandon the restraint he was gripping onto and the stern counsel of his wiser self, who reminded him, minute by minute, of the myriad good reasons why restraint was wholly necessary.

He planted his feet more firmly in the sand, as if to anchor himself there, and began folding garments carefully. His own shirt and trousers were easily disposed of but, as he enacted the role of laundry maid to Anne's clothing, his stern resolve wavered somewhat. He folded the pin-tucked shirt waist and short corset, recalling the trembling frenzy with which he had unfastened them and the alacrity with which Anne had assisted him. Then the heavy calico skirt and the light, filmy petticoat. Scarcely an hour ago he had considered a glimpse of this last a liberty, now he was handling it with the familiarity of long acquaintance. Her drawers he hardly dared handle, and her chemise was shunted onto the orderly pile with almost the same rapidity. But Gilbert plucked it from the top of the small heap and, as an addict allowing himself one last hit, gathered it close to his chest and inhaled deeply. The musky scent of Anne, lingering on her chemise, combined with the recollection of her tearing, naked, towards the waves, was almost too too much for his taut control to bear.

He glanced up and saw her leaping, again, with the incoming waves. He smiled, weakly. So one of his Annes was a Haliae after all. And if he were to throw caution to the eager waves, then what? Could he be her Poseidon without incurring disaster?

The ache that had grown within him all day throbbed, insistently. His fingers edged around the waistband of his short cotton drawers, which seemed, suddenly, as heavy as a winter serge suit, as he hovered on the brink of joining Anne in her watery madness. Another wave crashed against the shore, briefly submerging the pale nymph leaping through the brine. Anne resurfaced seconds later, spluttering and wiping the salty water from her eyes.

"That was close!" she yelled towards Gilbert, "it is exhilarating in here, but a bit hairy at times, particularly as I can't swim."

"Anne!" yelled Gilbert, with rising urgency, "what did you say? Can you swim?"

"Not a bit!" Returned Anne, with worrying unconcern, "I never had an opportunity to learn."

With that, she turned to face the oncoming breaker and leapt, again, into the swelling wave.

With a groan, Gilbert pulled at the waistband of his drawers then, kicking them aside, raced into the sea after his errant Halia.

 _[AN: thank you all for the welcome back. I am so pleased to see that this story still has an audience. You are a patient and generous lot. This particular episode seems to be requiring a few chapters to play itself out. This, combined with my glacial writing pace, could see this Avonlea summer takes years to play itself out. But I've time enough if you have. Thanks for sticking with me.]_


	16. Anniversary Revelations, part four

_[AN: I will stop apologising for the length of time it is taking me to post, I have resigned myself to being a very slow writer. But this has proved challenging to write as I dithered a little about what I should permit Anne and Gilbert to get up to in that water. In the end I gave up and just let the characters decide for themselves. And some characters can be very decided!_

 _I hope you enjoy. This has been a long time coming for everyone concerned...]_

 **Anniversary Revelations: Part Four**

The waves were crashing against the shore with a pounding fierceness that had not been apparent when Anne and Gilbert first made their laughing progress around the headland. Then the tide had just begun its return journey up the shore; dainty white horses leaping playfully from surf to sand. Now, raging, alabaster stallions stampeded up the scarlet sands, swirling and foaming into the rocky red inlets and crevices, depositing canescent foam into blushing nooks and atop smooth, carnadine sands, before retreating to the raging ocean. There to recruit and regroup, before beginning their ebullient assault once more.

Gilbert gasped as he breached the spumous waves, numbed by the stinging force that encircled him. For a few moments, he stood, motionless, becalmed by the stilling effects of the frigid waters. Then, recalling the crazy catalyst behind his flight into the sea, he looked around him, scanning the swelling surf for a sign of his Titian nymph. He didn't need to seek for long. Anne emerged, laughing and spluttering from the latest wave to submerge her, salty water streaming from her flaming locks, rivulets coursing down her pale shoulders, runnelling over milky breasts, tributaries rindling around the curve if her belly and swell of her hip.

Gilbert stared. He held out a hand, half to steady her against the rampant swell, half to assure himself that she was actually really Anne and not some newborn Neriad, bestowed upon him by a beneficent Triton.

"Anne!" He exclaimed, "What are you doing?"

"Cooling off!" said Anne, with an impish grin, "Cold, isn't it".

"Freezing!" retorted Gilbert, with emphasis, "this is madness! Can you really not swim?"

"No," smiled Anne, grabbing Gilbert's out stretched hand, as she was buffeted by another, exuberant, surge. "I never had an opportunity to learn. It's not as easy for girls you know, we can't just head to the swimming hole at Wright's creek, tear our clothes off and dive in."

"Well, I suppose not," conceded Gilbert, recalling the difficulty he had had extricating Anne from the topmost of her many layers, "But there would be other opportunities, surely?"

"Diana learnt, at White Sands, over the summer, when she was eight. Her father taught her." Anne looked thoughtful at this point, "but Matthew couldn't be expected to do the same for me, and Marilla would never countenance sea bathing, so I never learnt."

"So, it turns out that I rescued the Lily Maid from a greater disaster than I realised," said Gilbert, with a smile, "and still you wouldn't forgive me."

"I have always been a bit of a fool where you are concerned, Gilbert Blythe," smiled Anne, running a finger down Gilbert's salty cheek, "and, don't say it!" She admonished hastily, seeing Gilbert about to respond, "I am not being foolish now; in fact, tonight, I think I am wiser than I have ever been."

Gilbert gripped onto Anne's arm, keen to ensure she remained anchored to him, whilst he sought to buttress her against the persistent briny onslaught. "Maybe this isn't as mad as I first thought," he muttered, with wry irony, "I have spent the best part of today, weeks even, eaten up with longing for you and, here you are, naked in front of me, and we're talking about swimming lessons!"

"Then maybe we should stop talking!" Anne looked up at Gilbert, a teasing gleam in her eye.

"And start swimming!" retorted Gilbert. "Anne, we can't stay here." A mutinous look crossed Anne's face and Gilbert expounded, hurriedly. "I mean, the shore shelves quite steeply here, you could be out of your depth pretty quickly."

Gilbert took Anne's hand and started to push through the splashing breakers, leading her away from the rocky outcrop and the deep waters that swirled and sucked roundabout, to the broader curve of the little cove where the waves ran in over more gradual sands. Here the risk of rising, on one exhilarating wave, from the shallows, only to plummet, into unforeseen depths, on the fall, was abated.

"Are we safe now?" queried Anne, as Gilbert came to a halt, standing, waist deep in the rushing waters, which were beating a path further and further up the sands. Gilbert's gaze flickered, momentarily, in the direction of neat pile of clothes, placed carefully atop the rocks and then returned to Anne.

"No," he whispered, as she wrapped her arms around his waist, "No, I don't think here is safe at all." With that, his lips sought hers…

The waves continued to beat about them, the foaming tendrils encroaching further and further up the shore. The moon waxed, pale and silvery high above them, bathing the shore in effulgent candescence; the high tide creating new pools and playgrounds around the perimeter of the cove.

It was Gilbert who broke the kiss. Pulling gently back, surveying, once more, the sight of Anne wrapped in nothing but the foaming waters, embellished by the silvery moonlight. He glanced behind them, at the ever-increasing swell, and then scanned the remains of the little beach, which was being rapidly consumed by the encroaching waves. Gathering Anne into his arms, he carried her up shore, to a small, rocky outcrop, where the encroaching waters had transformed a small, rock-ringed pool, into a tiny harbour.

The waters rose and fell with the racing waves; now caressing Gilbert's hip, then surging to his waist. Gilbert wore his watery garments casually, all his attention fixed on securing his precious cargo safely. Spying a long, smooth ledge, lapped occasionally by the incoming waters, he lifted Anne up and seated her there. Anne, seeing him about to draw back, immediately wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him closer. Gilbert, wrapped his arms around her, laid his head against her stomach and relaxed into her embrace.

Anne's hands trace the outline of Gilbert's muscles on his back. Her fingers caressing every sinew and line. Every surge of the incoming waters followed by a surge of fresh kisses along his shoulders and neck.

"Safe now?" she murmurs, anointing him with more kisses, then tilting his head up, so he can gaze into those bewitching green eyes and her lips can claim his for deeper, more urgent kisses. He knows safety is the last thought in her mind, that she is lost in the moment, the moonlight, the rising waves. So he must protect them both: to protect her is the husband's right he gladly claims prematurely

"No," he responds, between caresses. "Never."

His kisses become increasingly urgent. His hands explore every plane and surface of her luminous skin, glowing in the moonlight, kissed by the sea. She lies back on the rock, trying to pull him up with her.

Gilbert pauses, planting his foot firmly into the sand. The waves swell around him, rising and falling with pounding irrevocability. Anne lies, aching and beautiful before him; bathed in silky moonlight, washed in the showering, spumescent waters. Gilbert surveys her, incredulous, still, that this beauty will be – is – his. That he is the unworthy Proteus that dare approach this dazzling Haliae. He runs his hand up her leg, over her round belly, caressing the salt, sprinkled breasts. His fingers explore every inch of pale skin, caressing, stroking, soothing, inflaming.

Anne is no longer playing with fire, she is drowning in an sea of aching, exquisite, breathless longing. Many waters cannot quench the love that surges through her, the floods cannot drown the desire rising within him.

She feels Gilbert's fingers brushing over her legs, her arms, her breasts, teasing bursts of glorious sensation with every stroke. She gasps as his thumb circles first one erect, rosy nipple, then the other. And moans, as his fingers are replaced by audacious lips, sucking and nuzzling, drawing from her wave after wave of exquisite sensation.

He stops. He aches to join her on her rocky chaise, to wrap his naked flesh over hers, to move above, within, to sate her desire with his. How easy it would be to rise, as if carried by the throbbing waves, and move in synchrony with the incessant waters around them. To yield to the longing that fills them both.

Are they not bound by intent and troth? Would his love be any greater for being declared before God and man? Why should he wait for an achingly distant future when their love burns so strongly now? He has waited so long, endlessly, patiently, relentlessly; waiting, waiting, waiting...

Anne feels the water surging around her, the foam splashing over her belly and breast, the water caressing where Gilbert left off. Her love is unquenchable, her desire undrowning. She longs to be set as seal upon his heart, to be marked as his and he as hers.

She feels Gilbert's stillness. She hears the ancient words of the divine love song swirling through her desire soaked mind.

"Many waters cannot quench love,

neither can the floods drown it."*

But, instead of the armies of angels and ages of lovers, whispering to her that love is as strong as death, she hears the Reverend Bates intoning sonorously about the bridal church. Into her unwilling imagination rise the less than harmonious tones of the Avonlea Presbyterian Church choir, squeaking and booming through 'Behold, the Bridegroom Cometh'; then, striding confidently into Anne's consciousness, as she does every Avonlea home and conscience, comes Mrs Lynde, armed with scripture for all circumstances:

"Strength and honour are her clothing;

and she shall rejoice in time to come."*

"In the time to come, mark you, young lady," says the phantasmic Rachel Lynde, "and you could do with putting on a little extra besides strength and honour, you will catch your death like that!"

With that parting pronouncement, the ariel Mrs Lynde waddles out of Anne's fevered imagination, presumably back to the sanctified fastness of her widow's bed.

Anne struggles upright, propping herself up on her elbows, her flushed gaze meeting Gilbert's dark eyes, loaded with anguished entreaty.

"Anne..?" Gilbert's questions is hoarse and barely audible.

Anne shakes her head slowly, "No," she whispers.

The waves retreat. Gilbert's body remains taut, impassioned, frustrated, but his mind floods with relief. He can wrestle aside his own fears and doubts, but Anne's brief moment of hesitation is all he needs to arrest his swelling desire.

He breathes deeply, as the waves rush over him again, wrapping him in a freezing blanket of foaming waters, and grips the rock, his knuckles white against the dark, wet rock.

"No?" He breathes, a weak smile flickering, painfully at the corner of his mouth.

"I can't Gil, I can't ask it of you, I can't do it. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise Anne. I think we are both guilty of asking for what neither of us can give right now." Gilbert stroked her cheek softly, caressingly, wiping a strand of damp red hair from her face.

"Time to go home?"

Anne gave a watery nod. Gilbert lifted her gently, tenderly, down from her rocky throne and, hand in hand, they splash through the waves up towards the high water mark.

It was a silent, yet curiously comfortable journey. Even though the night was now firmly established, a little of the day's heat lingered in the night air, wrapping airy tendrils of warmth around damp and frigid skin. As they reached the tidy pile of clothes that Gilbert had left on the warms rocks, Gilbert reached for his much abused shirt. Anne forestalled him, picking up her petticoat and, murmuring, "I think I have more to spare than you," proceeded to wipe the salty water from his chest and arms. Gilbert smiled, shrugged into his shirt and, taking the long length of cotton lawn from Anne, sponged the dampness from her cold skin.

Their dressing was without the frenzied heat of their undressing, but still skin trembled and fingers fumbled as garments were pulled up and fastenings retired. After patting Anne dry, Gilbert dropped a chaste, reverent kiss on the salty skin of her breast, then slipped her chemise over her head. He fumbled, awkwardly into his drawers, aware of both Anne's sideways glances and her own occupation in a similar task. He hurried into his trousers, whilst Anne struggled into her corset.

"Here, let me." His fingers, forgetting their recent, bold deftness, struggled with the newly familiar fastenings of Anne's short corset. He pooled her skirt on the sand, helping her to step inside, then pulling the heavy fabric up and tying the bindings at he waist. His hands rested lightly on Anne's newly re-clad hips and he traced a line of kisses across her collarbone, as if to impart the taste and texture of her skin onto his, soon to be hungry, lips. Then he slipped her shirtwaist over her head, refastening one, two, three hastily popped buttons.

Anne, eschewing the sandy stockings, slipped her bare feet into her shoes, whilst Gilbert retied his boots. Then, reassembled and resolute, they grasped hands and walked slowly, behind the retreating tide, around the headland, over the dunes and back to Mr Barry's waiting flat.

The row up the lake was star lit and silent. Each reflecting with relief, regret and exhilarated remembrance of what might have been, what could have been and what was to be in their longed for and promised future.

*Song of Solomon 8 v7

*Proverbs 31 v25

 _Sorry if this is a disappointing outcome. I did wrestle with what I could allow, then Mrs Lynde rode to my rescue. We can't have any regrets in this perfect summer! ;-)_

 _Thank you everyone who reads and massive thanks to those who review. I do try to write for the sake of the story, but it really does keep me going, knowing that there are people out there enjoying this and waiting (sometime impatiently), for the next instalment._

 _I love hearing what you think and, as ever, would welcome your opinion on this._

 _Guest - I love that you are learning as well as enjoying the story. The process of writing allows me to dust off words that don't get used much in common life, plus I occasionally look for new ones (Roget is the descriptive writer's best friend!)_

 _I am also learning a lot about more than the craft of writing. Astrakelly, in an effort to test my hypothesis about Anne not being able to swim, I found myself reading a raft of scholarly articles on 19th century attitudes to women swimming. It was apparently very uncommon for women at this time to learn to swim. Both impractical and indecent. I was always struck by the unfairness of this circumstance in A Room with A View, where even the vicar get to strip naked and frolic in the pond, by Lucy Honeychurch must remain buttoned up in cream muslin and pretend it never happens._

 _Edkchestnut - thanks for the regular cheers, I hope the romance is suitably satisfying. I also feel like they are always on the edge, it's an integral part of their current dilemma. Intimacy is stolen in the circumstances they are in._

 _Kim Blythe - sorry if I scared you, I didn't deliberately set out to imply that Anne was in imminent danger of drowning, but she was in danger and Gilbert (and you!) spotted it. I guess the challenge then is whether Anne's recklessness leads them both into danger?_

 _Charlotte Mills - sorry to keep you waiting, think you can get up off your knees yet?!_

 _Alinya - "no one does love scenes like you". I treasured that one (especially coming from you), the more so because writing love scenes is resoundingly NOT easy._

 _K-with-a-K - at the risk of protesting too much, I really do find it hard to write the physical stuff. But what matters the most is that you believe what is happening is possible because it is Anne, because it is Gilbert. That's what I aim for, when wandering off from expected mores and behaviours, that it is believable because it is true to the characters we love._

 _FKAJ - what I love about you is you notice the stuff I want to be noticed. That's reviewing gold and makes an aspiring writer very pleased._

 _Thank you everyone for keeping with this slow burning story. We will get to September, possibly before September actually arrives (that's my new target). I reckon we are about two thirds in now. There's a sultry August to get through and Diana Wright has a spare bedroom prepared... ;-)_


	17. Anniversary Revelations, part five

**Anniversary Revelations, Part V**

The grandfather clock, in the front parlour at Orchard Slope, had just finished its twelfth, sonorous, chime when Gilbert tethered Mr Barry's purloined flat to the short landing stage. He reached down to clasp Anne's hand and pull her from the boat. She skipped nimbly up onto the worn boards, coming up, abruptly, against Gilbert's chest. Gilbert's arms instinctively wrapped around her, his hands skimming her back and resting on her hips. The soft skin, with which he had, so recently, been achingly familiar, was hidden away behind layers of cotton and corsetry. Whilst his ardour remained unabated, his audacity was spent. He moved, reluctantly, out of the embrace.

The moonlit row up the pond had been, almost eerily, still and silent. The chastened lovers were wrapt in their own thoughts, and the inland waters imbued with a still serenity that contrasted sharply with the fierce ebullience of the waves behind them. The silence was punctuated only by rhythmic splashes, as Gilbert pulled furiously at the oars, alternating each vigorous stroke with equally vigorous self censure. How close had he come to an almost criminal act of folly?

He knew, none better, why they must wait. He had attended enough births around Patterson St, where even the greenest of medical students could provide welcome relief to the, gin soaked, midwives who presided over the labours of Kingsport's poorest mothers.

"You'll tell 'em he come early, doctor?" Entreated more than one, too recent bride, cradling a lusty nine pounder in her sweat soaked arms. Gilbert's assurance that no one could mistake such a hefty, healthy chap for a six month baby, waved aside, as surely as his protestations that he wasn't actually a doctor yet.

"Lor, love you ducky," retorted one big, sonsy matron, "no one round 'ere cares what bit o' paper yer 'ave or 'ave not. It's enough that you got that big black bag and them soft hands to go with it. What use have the likes of us for a proper doctor anyway? Proper doctors cost proper money. Besides," she continued with a grin, "Mrs Reverend Jo sent you here and her opinion's good enough for me."

He'd seen so many of them, girls trying to put a respectable front onto babies conceived well before their wedding day, or worse, the ones who had no ring to brandish proudly before the neighbours, who turned their face to the wall, rather than look at the babe they dare not learn to love.

It was always the women who bore the consequences, who shouldered the blame. Who surprised him, again and again, with their strength and resilience and pride. Now he was almost as bad as the faceless, feckless men he so despised. Pre-empting promises and begetting lives without the means to support them.

And he had almost put Anne in such a position. That their first union would be succeeded by anxious weeks of waiting and counting. That any child would be the catalyst for a hasty wedding, and the end of their plans for the future, rather than the blissful culmination of all their shared dreams. That he would expose his Queen Anne to the censure of the spiteful and ruin his chances of providing for her as she deserved, all for the sake of one moment of wave-tossed madness! He was the worst of thoughtless, selfish cads. She trusted him, weak, base fool that he was, how nearly he had come to breaking that trust entirely.

The tugs on the oars became sharper and the splashes louder, as Gilbert piloted the boat further up the pond. In the stern of the boat, Anne lolled, listlessly. Gone was the sun-baked, unfurled languor of their outward journey; she was tired, spent and dreamless.

Anne knew Gilbert would blame himself. She supposed that was why she had finally called a halt. Conjuring up that fleeting phantasm that had doused the flame of her passion as the frigid waters had not. She supposed she ought to feel some remorse, but she couldn't. She only regretted making Gilbert so cross with himself. But she couldn't regret the feel of his hands, his lips, on her naked skin, the exhilaration of his touch. She could not regret a single moment, each sight and touch and taste would be treasured.

She would have borne the consequences. The bliss, the rapture was worth it. She would have taught in the back slums of Kingsport with her child strapped to her back, if that's what it took to get Gilbert through medical school. Then a shaft of realism punctured Anne's ariel defiance. It would be Gilbert teaching in the back slums, he would shelve his ambitions and do what ever job he could. She couldn't curtail him in that way.

Her mind wandered to that little yellow house in Bolinbrooke, to two souls with little but love to give to their tiny, red-headed, baby. Sometimes love was not as strong as death. The children that would be born to Dr and Mrs Blythe deserved a home that was stable and secure, as well as a loving one.

Anne sighed and packed her unspoken desires away, deep in the recesses of her heart. She had always considered herself to be ambivalent about motherhood. Three sets of Hammond twins had shown her the drudgery of child rearing, with none of its attendant joys. Her ambitions had been far from the domestic and maternal. But the strange, unaccountable, envy that had consumed her, when she first met baby Fred and observed Diana, aglow with the ineffable radiance of new motherhood, had sprung from that innermost, unexamined, part of her soul.

For, within that aching, urging, longing for Gilbert, that had been building within in her since that first embrace on the platform at Bright River, lay a sequestered, unfathomable, hunger. Not only did she long for her life, her soul, her body to be married inexorably with Gilbert's, but increasingly, her House of Dreams was being populated with brown-haired, brown-limbed children. Some strange, elemental force within her, akin to that which had led her to the brink of ruin in the foaming waves earlier, filled her with a fierce longing to feel a new life forming within her, to be heavy with Gilbert's child. To see the joy and pride flush across his face as she handed him his first born. What a gift to present to the man you loved, and Anne, Anne and only Anne would be the woman to do that. A shiver ran through her as her imagination painted the triumphant scene, vividly, across her mind.

But their House of dreams was still that, a dream. It's occupants existing only in airy fancy. For now, they had only waiting and longing and snatched moments of intimacy. A year ago, with Gilbert hovering between life and death, and Anne exiled from what life was left to him, she would have snatched up the promise of a shared life that she held now. Now, it seemed, promises could no longer satisfy.

Anne felt Gilbert's withdrawal from their embrace and choked down the impulse to pull him back into her arms. She smiled, wanly, as she fell into step alongside him, reaching, tentatively, for his hand.

The walk back to Green Gables was largely silent and mostly companionable. Gilbert's tight clasp on Anne's hand a proxy for the embraces he felt he shouldn't seek. Avonlea was wrapped in dutiful slumber: silent, still, somnolent. As they turned into lovers lane, the strange stillness grew thicker, the leafy canopy above them, ensilvered by the moonlight, was eerily silent, without even a hint of breeze to ruffle the encircling foliage.

They paused at the Green Gables gate, witness to years of their elongated farewells, to begin another attempt at parting. Gilbert turned to face her and Anne walked into the the open circle of his arms.

For some moments they stood, still and silent, Anne with her cheek against Gilbert's shoulder, her arms about his waist. Gil rested his chin atop her damp head, stroking the tangled, red fronds that snaked, loosely, over her shoulders and down her back. They held each other closely, tenaciously, as if tonight's parting were the precursor to a separation far longer than the anticipated night and day to follow.

In their silent embrace, the regret that wasn't wholly regretful and the disappointment that didn't truly disappoint, was shared. Anne opened her mouth to speak once, to try to articulate her disappointment and relief, but, meeting Gilbert's eyes, she knew her words weren't necessary and relaxed into restful silence, tightening her clasp around Gilbert even as his embrace grew stronger.

Eventually, Anne's yawns broke the silent spell around them. Gilbert looked down at her with concern. "Anne," he whispered, you must go to bed, you are exhausted."

"Humm," sighed Anne, almost imperceptibly, as she tightened her hold around Gilbert's waist even more. "I don't want to leave you."

Another sigh followed. "Parting is such sweet sorrow." Anne quoted wistfully, pressing her head to Gilbert's chest.

"But it is only good night till it be morrow," paraphrased Gilbert, with an attempt at briskness. "Go to bed Anne, I will see you tomorrow."

"And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow." Anne recited, with a sleepy smile, as she allowed Gilbert to take her hand and lead her to the Green Gables front porch. Once besides the door, she wrapped her arms around him again and pulled him closer for a tentative kiss.

Gilbert, pulling back from the embrace, looked a little anxious. "Anne, I'm sorry," he began.

Anne cut off his apology with another kiss. "No apologies, Gil," she murmured, when the kiss drew to a close, "no regrets. All that matters is I love you, you are mine to love and always will be." She smiled up at him, her grey eyes luminous. He could respond only with a kiss.

"Anne, go to bed," Gil whispered again, his hands caressing her jaw, her hair, snaking down her back in blatant denial of his words.

"I'm going," she breathed, her lips capturing his once more, and hands sweeping across his chest, around his shoulders and fingers tangling through his chestnut curls.

They edged closer to the door, each exhorting the other to leave, whilst raining down kisses and caresses on one another that ensured they remained locked in their embrace. Each knowing the goodbye should come soon, but neither wanting to be the one to make it.

It was Gilbert who pulled away first, noticing the break in the moon-washed shadows and silence that surrounded them. The door to Green Gables stood open and there, wrapped in calico and haloed in curl papers, stood a fantastic, but, alas, not phantasmic, Rachel Lynde.

 _[AN: thank you all for the reviews, the encouragement and still being here to read this exceptionally slow moving story. I can't tell you what a relief it is to finally, with the tolling of the Barry grandfather clock, have moved this story on from the longest "final Sunday in July" in the history of story telling. I started chapter 12, which began that day's narrative, almost a year ago. It is largely thanks to your interest and encouragement, that this story has not been consigned to the myriad ranks of unfinished projects that clutter up my life. I will finish this. I have no idea when, I am not sure how, but this story will keep on ticking over and I will reach the end of this Avonlea summer.]_


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